⊿ Point. {R} Glossary. ◢ Keyword: C. ▰ Sources. 〓 Books [B] ◥ University. {q} PhD. ⏫ THEMES. ⏫ Big Data. [B] Big Data. ⚫ USA. ↂ EndNote. ☝️ BD Dummies. (Digital) Container. A container or wrapper format is a metafile format whose specification describes how different elements of data and metadata coexist in a computer file.[1] Among the earliest cross-platform container formats were Distinguished Encoding Rules and the 1985 Interchange File Format.
Containers are frequently used in multimedia applications. Properties[edit] Since the container does not describe how data or metadata is encoded, a program able to identify and open a container file might not be able to decode the contained data. By definition, a container format could wrap any kind of data. Multimedia container formats[edit] Container format parts have various names: "chunks" as in RIFF and PNG, "atoms" in QuickTime/MP4, "packets" in MPEG-TS (from the communications term), and "segments" in JPEG. Some containers are exclusive to audio: Other containers are exclusive to still images: Other flexible containers can hold many types of audio and video, as well as other media.
Single coding formats[edit]