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Videos

Video Formats

As of Jan 2026, you can really only use .mp4 and .gif, though .gif is pretty big for a file.

Format What it is Browser support Notes
.mp4 Standard video container ✅ Universal Best for web
.mov Apple video container ⚠️ Limited Common for editing, not ideal for web
.webm Web-focused container ⚠️ Partial Smaller than MP4, Safari support inconsistent
.mkv Flexible container ❌ None Not supported by browsers
Animated WebP / AVIF Image sequences ⚠️ Experimental Short loops only, tooling fragile
.gif Legacy image animation ✅ Universal Very large files
.avi Legacy Microsoft container (1992) ❌ None Outdated, huge, not web-safe

Codecs (Coder/Decoder)

An mp4 video is only a container. It ccan have a compression/codec of H.264, HECV, AV1 etc, but only H.264 will be supported by most browsers. The file metadata will state the codec.

  • H.264 (AVC)**
    • industry standard
    • moderate file size
  • H.265 (HEVC)
    • license/support issues, smaller than H.264
  • VP9, webm
    • Google’s open alternative to HEVC
    • Smaller than H.264
    • Slower encoding
    • Only safari 17+, but not older devices
  • AV1
    • best compression, but not iffy browser support
    • royality-free
    • Only safari 17+, but not older devices -ProRes
    • Apple codec
    • large files for video production

Changing Video Format

  • ffmpeg or ImageMagick. See photos.

Convert to .mp4 while specifing h264 video format at no audio:

$ ffmpeg -i kiran-shedding-short.mov -c:v h264 -an kiran-shedding-ffmpeg.mp4

Video Editing Software