Video file types

What is the difference between the various video file extensions - .avi,
..dat, .mpeg etc.? I notice .avi files take up a considerably larger space
compared to .dat for example.

"Ray" <Ray@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:64567CE5-0790-421B-B175-829307CF3C7F@microsoft.com...
> What is the difference between the various video file extensions - .avi,
> .dat, .mpeg etc.? I notice .avi files take up a considerably larger space
> compared to .dat for example.


Different methods of formatting the data within a file for the same video
output. Write a note in Notepad and save it in a .txt file. Write the same
text string in a Word .doc file. Notice the .doc file is larger than the
..txt file. Same text string, different formatting of the data to store that
content. A 14-byte .txt file will blow up to a 19KB .doc file.

Google can provide LOTS of articles describing the various video formats.
For example, search on "video file formats" and you find some.

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"" wrote:
> What is the difference between the various video file
> extensions - .avi,
> ..dat, .mpeg etc.? I notice .avi files take up a considerably
> larger space
> compared to .dat for example.

The type of video isn’t necessarily defined by the file extension,
for example you could rename a video file to .bmp and as long as you
have a good player, it will work out what kind of video file is based
on what information is available from the file it’s self, rather
then assuming it’s a image based on the file extension. However, in
this case avi is unencoded video, which will take up lots of space.
mpeg is either mpeg 1 or mpeg 2 encoded and takes up less space.
Additionally, avi files often are not plain audio and video, it is
common place for them to be mpeg 4.

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