The MOV file format is most commonly associated with Apple and the QuickTime video clip. The file format was developed by Apple as was QuickTime Player, it is compatible with both the Microsoft and MacOS platforms. MOV files are capable of storing two or more tracks which can be video, audio, text, graphics or effects. This flexibility makes this file format very popular for music and video editing.
MOV files use a proprietary compression algorithm and each track that is held within the file is made up of an encoded media stream or a reference to a media stream that is located in another file - this allows the embedding of existing media. QuickTime player which was developed and created by Apple allows a user to open and play .MOV files and later version of QuickTime Player, such as QuickTime Pro allows the user to edit and export .MOV files.
Associated programs
Apple QuickTime Player CyberLink PowerDirector Roxio Easy Media Creator
Using Zamzar it is possible to convert MOV files to a variety of other formats:
mov to 3gp (3GPP Multimedia File) mov to 3g2 (3GPP2 Multimedia File) mov to aac (Advanced Audio Coding File) mov to ac3 (AC3 Audio File) mov to avi (Windows video file) mov to flac (Free Lossless Audio Codec) mov to flv (Flash video) mov to gif (Compuserve graphics interchange) mov to ipad (MPEG-4 (H264) Video File) mov to iphone (MPEG-4 (H264) Video File) mov to ipod (MPEG-4 Video File) mov to mp3 (Compressed audio file) mov to mp4 (MPEG-4 Video File) mov to mpg (Moving Picture Experts Group File) mov to ogg (Ogg Vorbis Compressed Audio File) mov to wav (Windows audio file) mov to webm (Multimedia Container Format) mov to wmv (Windows Media Video)
MP3 is a digital music format which allows CD tracks to be reduced to around a tenth of their normal size without a significant loss of quality. MP3 gets rid of a lot of the information recorded in a song that our ears are not able to hear and then uses complex algorithms to reduce the file size. This then enables you to get hundreds of songs on to a CD and it also has opened up a new market over the internet - the download market as download times have been significantly reduced.
The MP3 format is a lossy format. That means that an MP3 file does not contain 100% of the original audio information. Instead, MP3 files use perceptual coding. In other words, that means it removes the information that your ear doesn't notice thereby making the file smaller. The reason lossy formats are used over RAW is that RAW audio files are too large to travel over the internet at any great speed. By using lossy formats it enables even dial up users to download mp3 files at a reasonable speed. RAW file formats generally require 176,000 bytes per second compared to a lossy format which requires 17,600. The difference is massive and so are the download times.
