Difference Between MOV and MP4

MOV vs MP4

There are a lot of file formats that can be used in storing your videos depending on your needs. MOV and MP4 are two file containers that are usually used to hold lossy video. Lossy video compression methods discard portions of the video data that it deems to be of less importance. The resulting video are substantially smaller while maintaining the quality loss at a minimum.

MOV was originally developed by Apple as a file format for its QuickTime movie player. The MOV format presented a lot of advantages that are quite usable to everyday use but the proprietary nature of the MOV format was a major hindrance. The MP4 file format was later developed as an industry standard, the developments was greatly based on the MOV file format to the point that they were exactly identical at first. The changes that were introduced were very minor and mostly involved data tagging information.

Since both formats record the same lossy compression methods, they are almost interchangeable in an Apple environment. You can even convert a file from MOV to MP4 and vice versa without having to re-encode the video. But outside of the Apple operating system, you might run into some problems. As MP4 is an industry standard, it has greater support in operating systems other than Apple’s. Most, if not all media players, that are available in various operating systems support this file format. Even in hand held devices like video players and gaming devices, you are more likely to find MP4 capabilities than MOV.

To sum it up, MOV and MP4 are just containers and they do not present any real effect on the quality of the encoded videos. That is up to the codec like H.264 and the others. Choosing between MOV and MP4 should be based solely on where you want to play the resulting videos. If it is only meant to circulate around the Mac community, then you are pretty safe with MOV but if you want to put it in your PSP or any other non Apple portable device, then you are better off with MP4

Summary:
1.Both MOV and MP4 are lossy formats which sacrifices quality for file size
2.MOV was initially developed by Apple as a file format for QuickTime
3.MOV is the basis for the development of MP4
4.MP4 is the industry standard and has more widespread support than MOV
5.Saving your file to either MOV or MP4 would result in the same video if you use the same codec

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