MP4 Video Format Technology Explained

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What is MP4 Technology?
What is an MP4?

Just like MP3s work by compressing music and audio files without affecting the audio quality, MP4 files are compressed video files. MP4 is also known as MPEG-4 AVC, or advanced video coding. This new technology is going to make video files decrease in size so that they are easier to work with and support. What used to be massive video files of motion and audio are now compressed versions of the same material, called MP4s.

How MP4 Technology Works

MP4 files work through compression; similar to how MP3 audio files are compressed, except these are more complex. The way these videos are compressed into very small files without affecting the quality is through dealing with specific coding issues, minimizing certain aspects, such temporal and spatial redundancies, transforming motion estimation and intra estimation into the frequency domain, and generally through compression and decompression, commonly referred to as codec.

The MP4 player works in a very simple manner. You simply purchase the “sold separately” electronic device and attach it to your computer, notebook, or TV. It’s that easy.

Advantages of MP4 Technology

MP4s produce videos of DVD-quality at less than 1 Mbps through a broadband connection. This means that with an MP4 player, you can retrieve videos through an Internet connection and watch them with your MP4 player. MP4 players can also play lower MP versions, such as audio MP3s.

Disadvantages of MP4 Technology

It looks like the same piracy issues that MP3s dealt with will arise with the MP4 technology. There are already pirated versions of movies available on the Internet. These licensing and piracy problems are bound to get out of hand as MP4 technology develops and gains popularity.

Although MP4 files are much smaller than regular video files, they will still take time to download with a broadband connection because they are still generally large files.