Uncompressed & Compressed Video Formats (Lossless vs Lossy)

This post recommended by MiniTool official website mainly distinguishes the differences between compressed and uncompressed video formats as well as the differences between lossy and lossless video formats. Moreover, it lists the common compressed video file formats.

What Is Data Compression?

In information theory, data compression, also called source coding or bitrate reduction, is the process of encoding data by taking advantage of fewer bits than the original representation. Such compression is either lossless or lossy.

Usually, a device that performs data compression is referred to as an encoder while one that performs data decompression is regarded as a decoder. The combination of encoding and decoding processes is known as a codec.

Besides, the process of reducing the size of a data file is usually named data compression. In the context of data transmission, it’s referred to as source coding. Encoding is done at the source of the data before delivery or storage.

Lossless Compression vs Lossy Compression

Lossless data compression reduces bits by identifying and eliminating statistical redundancy. Thus, no data is lost and file quality is guaranteed. On the contrary, lossy data compression reduces bits by deleting unnecessary or less important info. So, lossy compression has data loss and quality damage.

What Is an Uncompressed Video?

After learning what is compressed video, now let’s see what uncompressed videos stand for.

An uncompressed video is a digital video that either has never been compressed or was generated by decompressing previously compressed video. Usually, it is made use of by video cameras, video recording devices, video monitors, as well as video processors that perform functions like image resizing, rotation, deinterlacing, and text/graphics overlay.

Uncompressed videos are conveyed over various kinds of baseband video interfaces including HDMI, DisplayPort, DVI, and SDI. There are standards for the carriage of uncompressed video over computer networks.

Tips:

An uncompressed video isn’t a raw video. The latter represents largely unprocessed data (e.g. without demosaicing) captured by an imaging device.

Video Container Formats

Most video codecs are used alongside audio compression techniques to save the separate but complementary data streams as one combined package using so-called container formats. The following are common video file formats together with their filename extensions.

Matroska: .mkv, .mk3d
MPEG-4 Part 14 (MP4): .mp4, .m4v
QuickTime File Format (QTFF): .mov, .qt
Advanced Systems Format (ASF): .asf, .wmv
Audio Video Interleave (AVI): .avi
Material Exchange Format (MXF): .mxf
MPEG program stream (PS): .m2p, .ps
MPEG transport stream (TS): .ts, .tsv
BDAV MPEG-2 transport stream (M2TS): .m2ts, .mts
Video Object (VOB): .vob
Enhanced VOB (EVO): .evo
3GPP (3GP): .3gp
3GPP2 (3G2): .3g2
Flash Video (F4V): .f4v
Flash Video (FLV): .flv
Ogg: .ogv, .ogx
WebM: .webm
RealMedia Variable Bitrate (RMVB): .rmvb
DivX Media Format (DMF): .divx

List of Compressed Lossless Video Format Codecs

The following lists the video codecs for lossless compressed video formats.

AOMedia Video 1 (AV1)
Dirac-research (Dirac)
Schrödinger (Dirac)
x264 (H.264/MPEG-4 AVC)
x265 (H.265/HEVC)
FFmpeg/libavcodec (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 ASP, H.261, H.263, VC-3, WMV7, WMV8, MJPEG, MS-MPEG-4v3, DV, Sorenson codec, etc.)
FFavs/libavcodec (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 ASP, etc.)
Libvpx (VP9)
Huffyuv
Lagarith

List of Compressed Lossy Video Format Codecs

Below is a list of the codecs for lossy video formats.

AOMedia Video 1 (AV1)
Libtheora (Theora)
dirac-research (Dirac)
CineForm
Schrödinger (Dirac)
x264 (H.264/MPEG-4 AVC)
x265 (H.265/HEVC)
Xvid (MPEG-4 ASP)
FFmpeg/libavcodec (MPEG-1/MPEG-2/MPEG-4 ASP/H.261/H.263/VC-3/WMV7/WMV8/MJPEG/MS-MPEG-4v3/DV/Sorenson codec, etc.)
FFavs/libavcodec (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 ASP, etc.)
OpenH264 (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264)
Blackbird
DivX (MPEG-4 ASP/H.264)
Microsoft’s DivX (MPEG-4v3)
3ivx (MPEG-4 ASP)
Nero Digital (MPEG-4 ASP/H.264)
Apple ProRes 422/4444 (ProRes)
Sorenson Video
Sorenson Spark
On2 TrueMotion VP3
On2 TrueMotion VP4
On2 TrueMotion VP5
On2 TrueMotion VP6
On2 TrueMotion VP7
Libvpx (VP8)
Libvpx (VP9)
Avid DNxHD (VC-3)
Cinema Craf Endoder SP2 (MPEG-1/MPEG-2)
TSUNAMI MPEG Encoder (TMPGEnc) Free Version (MPEG-1/MPEG-2)
Microsoft Windows Media Encoder (WMV/VC-1)
Cinepak
Indeo Video
TrueMotion S
RealVideo (RealVideo/H.263)
MainConcept (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, H.264/AVC, H.263, VC-3, MPEG-4 Part 2, DV, MJPEG, ETC.)
CellB Video Encoding
Elecard (MPEG-1/MPEG-2/MPEG-4/AVC)

Compressed Video Format Converter

If you would like to convert your videos between lossless video formats and lossy video formats, you can rely on a professional and easy-to-use video/audio converter called MiniTool Video Converter, which can help you quickly change the formats of the target videos and sounds.

MiniTool Video ConverterClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

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About The Author

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Position: Columnist

Helen Graduated from university in 2014 and started working as a tech editor in the same year. Her articles focus on video creation, editing, and conversion. She also has a good knowledge of disk management and data backup & recovery. Through an in-depth exploration of computer technology, Helen has successfully helped thousands of users solve their annoying problems.