What's a .m4v video file ?

I recently learned how to rip some home movies that I had on DVD. I used the program called "HandBrake" to do this. HandBrake converted the home movies to a file type that I have never heard of, or seen before. The file extension was .m4v I opened up my free-version of QuickTime Movie Player and converted the file to a .mov file. My question is, which of these 2 file types will YouTube accept for upload to their site ? Thank you.

M4V is a video format developed by Apple. Mov is working on Youtube.

MP4 was co-developed by Apple but is an open format used by a HUGE variety of devices. YouTube accepts MP4 files so there was no need for you to re-encode with QuickTime (which can also play MP4, as can iTunes and nearly every other video program out there).

Re-encoding a compressed video results in some quality loss, so you'll want to avoid converting MP4s to other formats.

mp4 and m4v are basically the same. If you want, you can change your m4vs to mp4s just by changing the extention.

Wow.......thanks !! I had no idea that M4V & MP4 are the same. I also did not know that the extensions could just be changed. Thank you.

chas_m said:

MP4 was co-developed by Apple but is an open format used by a HUGE variety of devices.

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Just out of curiosity, how are you defining "open" here? In common tech parlance, H.264 is quite possibly the perfect antithesis to "open."

MightyGem said:

mp4 and m4v are basically the same. If you want, you can change your m4vs to mp4s just by changing the extention.

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Used to think there might be some tiny differences as I once changed my .m4v to .mp4 but the file was broken. Not sure it's about that that file or format.

vansmith said:

Just out of curiosity, how are you defining "open" here? In common tech parlance, H.264 is quite possibly the perfect antithesis to "open."

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I think you may be confusing "open" with "open source," which is not what I said.

MPEG-4 Part 14 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MP4 is an ISO standard (MPEG-4 part 14). H.264 (MPEG-4 part 10) is different (in a "splitting hairs" sense) but is also an ISO standard. That's what I mean by "open" in this context.

chas_m said:

I think you may be confusing "open" with "open source," which is not what I said.

MPEG-4 Part 14 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MP4 is an ISO standard (MPEG-4 part 14). H.264 (MPEG-4 part 10) is different (in a "splitting hairs" sense) but is also an ISO standard. That's what I mean by "open" in this context.

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I can see how my comment might be read that way but I was referring to "open" as equivalent to open format.

It might be open in the standardized sense but it sure isn't open in terms of usage (patents have a nasty tendency to do that). But, we're getting way off topic and we both know how codec licensing conversations usually end up.

ravichayal said:

.mv4 is the extension of video files according to me.........

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True, but so are MPEG, VOB, PS, M2P, MOD, VRO, DAT, MOV, DV, AVI, MP4, TS, M2T, MMV, REC, VID, AUD, AVR, VDR, PVR, TP0, TOD, M2V, M1V, MPV, AIFF, M1A, MP2, MPA, AC3 to name a few. ;D