Video Format Decision Helper

If you want to convert a video in a format that can be played back on as much devices as possible, you need to make some concessions. This little tool tries to help with these: You tell it which devices are important to you, and it tells you which formats you can use.

Note that this list is not very detailed. This is deliberate, because otherwise it would be much too complex. It's also conservative: it might be possible that some devices of a category play files in additional formats not listed here. Moreover, there may be inaccuracies; if you find any, please tell me.

Please select the devices on which your video must play:

PC with Windows XP
      assume that DVD player software is installed
PC with Windows 7
Mac with OS X
DVD player
DVD/DivX player
Blu-ray disc player
HD media player (WD TV, O!Play, Xtreamer, most Smart TVs, ...)
XBox 360
PlayStation 3
iOS devices (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad)
Web video using Adobe Flash

You didn't select any format yet. If this means that you don't care on which devices your video will play, then go ahead and encode it in whatever format you want :)

Matroska

Video Format: up to 1920x1080p/30; square pixels
Video Codec: H.264 Constrained Baseline, Main or High Profile up to Level 4.1
Audio Codec: Dolby Digital (mono/stereo/5.1) or Low Complexity AAC (mono/stereo) or MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (“MP3”, mono/stereo)
Container Format: Matroska (.mkv)

MPEG-4 AVC

Video Format: up to 640x480p/30; square pixels
Video Codec: H.264 Constrained Baseline Profile up to Level 3.0
Audio Codec: Low Complexity AAC (mono/stereo)
Container Format: ISO MPEG-4 (.mp4)

HD MPEG-4 AVC

Video Format: up to 1920x1080p/30; square pixels
Video Codec: H.264 Constrained Baseline, Main or High Profile up to Level 4.1
Audio Codec: Low Complexity AAC (mono/stereo)
Container Format: ISO MPEG-4 (.mp4)

MPEG-4 ASP

Video Format: up to 640x480p/30; square pixels
Video Codec: MPEG-4 Simple or Advanced Simple Profile (without QPel and GMC, max. 1 B frame) up to Level 4
Audio Codec: Low Complexity AAC (mono/stereo)
Container Format: ISO MPEG-4 (.mp4)

HD MPEG-4 ASP

Video Format: up to 1280x720p/30; square pixels
Video Codec: MPEG-4 Simple or Advanced Simple Profile (but GMC limited to 1 warp point)
Audio Codec: Low Complexity AAC (mono/stereo)
Container Format: ISO MPEG-4 (.mp4)

DivX

Video Format: up to 720x480p/30; square pixels
Video Codec: MPEG-4 Simple or Advanced Simple Profile (without QPel and GMC, max. 1 B frame) up to Level 5
Audio Codec: MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (“MP3”, mono/stereo)
Container Format: Audio/Video Interleave (.avi)
Restrictions:

DivX HD

Video Format: up to 1280x720p/30; square pixels
Video Codec: MPEG-4 Simple or Advanced Simple Profile (but GMC limited to 1 warp point)
Audio Codec: MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3 (“MP3”, mono/stereo)
Container Format: Audio/Video Interleave (.avi)

AVCHD

Video Format: 1280x720p/25/30 or 1920x1080i/25/30; 16:9 only
Video Codec: H.264 Constrained Baseline, Main or High Profile up to Level 4.1
Audio Codec: Dolby Digital (mono/stereo/5.1)
Container Format: MPEG-2 Transport Stream for random access media (.m2ts, .mts)
Restrictions:

DVD-compliant MPEG-2

Video Format: 720x480i/30 or 720x576i/25; 4:3 or 16:9 only
Video Codec: MPEG-2
Audio Codec: MPEG-1 Layer 2 (mono/stereo) or Dolby Digital (mono/stereo/5.1)
Container Format: MPEG-2 Program Stream (.mpg)
Restrictions:

MPEG-1

Video Format: up to 1920x1080p/30; square pixels
Video Codec: MPEG-1
Audio Codec: MPEG-1 Layer 2 (mono/stereo)
Container Format: MPEG-1 System (.mpg)
Restrictions:

Windows Media Video 9

Video Format: up to 1920x1080p/30; square pixels
Video Codec: WMV3 (Windows Media Video 9)
Audio Codec: Windows Media Audio 7/8/9
Container Format: Advanced Systems Format (.wmv)

Windows Media Video 7

Video Format: up to 1920x1080p/30; square pixels
Video Codec: WMV1 (Windows Media Video 7)
Audio Codec: Windows Media Audio
Container Format: Advanced Systems Format (.wmv)