Comparison between MP4 and AVI

MP4 is the file extension for the MPEG-4 container format. More commonly known as MPEG-4 AVC (Advanced Video Coding), it can contain all kinds of multi-media content - like audio, video, 2D and 3D graphics, and animated avatars, besides user interactivity features. The MPEG-4 characterizes the storage of audio, scenes (described by the scene language BIFS), and other multi-media content using the ISO Base Media File Format.

AVI, or Audio Video Interleave, is a multimedia container format. Developed by Microsoft in 1992, it is the most common format for audio and video data on a computer. AVI is actually a type of RIFF (Resource Interchange File Format), which divides a file’s data into chunks, or blocks, each chunk being identified by a FourCC tag.

Summary:

1. MP4 is developed by MPEG, and AVI is developed by Microsoft.

2. MP4 is created with x164, and AVI is created from RAW with AVC2AVI.

3. At the same file size, MP4 files have a better video quality then AVI files.

4. AVI can be played in most Windows-based applications like Windows Media Player, while MP4 is mostly used with many personal media players like iPod and PSP.

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