You will find a lot of different video containers and video file formats today. There is no wonder that some people easily get confused about the differences between them. Though you will be able to recognize them easily, their identical names make it a little bit hard to differentiate the two.
MPEG4 and MP4 are 2 of the common formats that easily confuse users. But there is more you need to know about these 2 formats aside from the similarity in their names. In this article, we will discuss MPEG4 vs MP4 as well as how you can convert them in case you will find the need to do so. Let us start with the definition of these 2 formats in the next section.
Part 1. Are MP4 and MPEG4 the Same Thing?
What Is MPEG4?
This is among the latest compression methods for audio and videos that were standardized by the MPEG group. It was specially designed for audio and video encoding processes in low-bandwidth (below 1.5 MBit/sec bitrate).
MPEG4 has been developed further and today, it was split into a lot of parts. For instance, MPEG4 Part 14, MPEG4 part 10, MPEG4 part 2, and many more. This definition alone implies that MPEG4 is not MP4.
The MPEG group has also standardized a few new layers, one of the most important is h263+ (commonly known as 3GP which is more popular in mobile devices) and .264 (known as AVC). Xvid and DivX are presumably the well-known MPEG4 video encoders today.
What Is MP4?
MP4 is an abbreviation of MPEG4 Part 14, not MPEG4. MP4 is a format and a file extension for videos. You can use this container format for storing both audio and video data as well as images, subtitles, and other similar data. It uses the .h264 or .mpeg4 video codec and audio formats like MP3, AAC, and others.
The most popular filename extensions associated with MPEG4 Part 14 is .mp4 but some extensions can also be .m4p, .m4a. And .m4v.
Part 2. MPEG4 vs MP4: What’s the Similarities and Differences
Similarities
Before we go to the differences between these 2 formats, let us first discuss their similarity. There is this one instance where MPEG4 and MP4 can be said to be similar to each other: their association. These 2 formats are both associated with videos. But, other than that, there are no other similarities.
Differences
MPEG4 was introduced in 1998 which was designed for various video and audio coding formats. It has absorbed many features of MPEG1 and MPEG2 and other similar standards. MPEG4 is commonly used for the compression of AV data which is usually for CD and web distribution, broadcast television, and voice (videophone, telephone). On the other hand, MP4 was based on the MOV file format of Apple.
In general, the majority of media players can support the MP4 format and it also allows for streaming online. Therefore, converting your videos to MP4 using a reliable converter on your Mac is necessary. Below, we give you a video converter for Mac users which you can use to achieve this task.