Video type parameters

The <video> element allows UA capability-based fallback with multiple alternative video resources designated by multiple <source> elements. The UA is expected to pick the alternative it tries to play by comparing the information given in the type attribute against its knowledge about its own playback capabilities.

The main media type designates the container format. In general, it does not say anything about codecs needed to decode the streams packaged in the container. RFC 4281 defines a codecs MIME parameter for indicating which codecs are used within the container. The parameter takes a double-quoted comma-separated list of codec identifiers. For example, the MIME type for MPEG-4 Simple Profile Level 0 video and AMR audio in a 3GPP container (.3gp) is video/3gpp; codecs="mp4v.20.9,samr".

The following list is organized by container.

Ogg

MIME types: application/ogg (RFC 3534), audio/ogg, video/ogg (RFC 5334)

Filename extension: .ogg, .oga, .ogv

This is not the complete set of codecs from RFC 5334. See also http://wiki.xiph.org/index.php/MIMETypesCodecs

Video Codecs

• Theora: theora
• Dirac: dirac

Audio Codecs

• Vorbis: vorbis
• Speex: speex
• FLAC: flac

Matroska

Main MIME type: video/x-matroska

Filename extension: .mkv

Video Codecs

• Theora: unknown
• Dirac: unknown

Audio Codecs

• Vorbis: unknown

MPEG

MIME types: audio/mpeg (RFC 3003), video/mpeg (RFC 2046)

Filename extension: .mp1, .mp2, .mp3, .mpg, .mpeg

There are no registered codecs parameters.

MPEG-4

Main MIME type: video/mp4 (RFC 4337)

Filename extension: .mp4

Video Codecs

• H.264 Baseline: avc1.42E0xx, where xx is the AVC level
• H.264 Main: avc1.4D40xx, where xx is the AVC level
• H.264 High: avc1.6400xx, where xx is the AVC level
• MPEG-4 Visual Simple Profile Level 0: mp4v.20.9
• MPEG-4 Visual Advanced Simple Profile Level 0: mp4v.20.240

Audio Codecs

• Low-Complexity AAC: mp4a.40.2

3GPP

Main MIME type: video/3gpp (RFC 3839)

Filename extension: .3gp

Video Codecs

• MPEG-4 Visual Simple Profile Level 0: mp4v.20.9

Audio Codecs

• Low-Complexity AAC: mp4a.40.2
• AMR: samr

ASF

Main MIME type: video/x-ms-wmv

Filename extension: .wmv

Video Codecs

• Windows Media Video 8 (4CC: WMV2): unknown
• Windows Media Video 9 / VC-1 Main (4CC: WMV3): unknown
• Windows Media Video 9 Advanced / VC-1 Advanced (4CC: WVC1): unknown

Audio Codecs

• Windows Media Audio 2: unknown
• Windows Media Audio 10 Professional: unknown

Real Media

Main MIME type: application/vnd.rn-realmedia

Filename extension: .rm

Is this single-vendor format even relevant here?

WAVE

Main MIME type: audio/x-wav

Filename extension: .wav

RFC 2361 lists parameters to be used on the form audio/vnd.wave;codec=x. These are also used for the codecs parameter.

Browser Support

The table below lists the results of canPlayType(type) for different browsers. It does not necessary relate to what the browsers actually can play.

Note: The spec has replaced "no" with "", but no implementations have updated to reflect this yet.

MIME	Firefox 3.5	Safari 4	Chrome 3
application/ogg	maybe	no	no
application/ogg; codecs=bogus	no	no	no
application/mp4	no	no	no
application/mp4; codecs=bogus	no	no	no
application/octet-stream	no	no	no
audio/3gpp	no	no	no
audio/3gpp2	no	no	no
audio/aac	no	probably	no
audio/x-aac	no	probably	no
audio/aiff	no	probably	no
audio/x-aiff	no	probably	no
audio/ac3	no	probably	no
audio/x-ac3	no	probably	no
audio/basic	no	probably	no
audio/flac	no	no	no
audio/x-flac	no	no	no
audio/mid	no	probably	no
audio/midi	no	probably	no
audio/x-midi	no	probably	no
audio/mpeg	no	probably	probably
audio/x-mpeg	no	probably	no
audio/mpegurl	no	probably	no
audio/x-mpegurl	no	probably	no
audio/mp4	no	probably	probably
audio/mp4; codecs=bogus	no	maybe	probably
audio/ogg	maybe	no	probably
audio/ogg; codecs=bogus	no	no	probably
audio/wav	maybe	probably	no
audio/wav; codecs=0	maybe	maybe	no
audio/wav; codecs=1	probably	maybe	no
audio/wav; codecs=2	no	maybe	no
audio/wave	maybe	no	no
audio/wave; codecs=0	maybe	no	no
audio/wave; codecs=1	probably	no	no
audio/wave; codecs=2	no	no	no
audio/x-wav	maybe	probably	no
audio/x-wav; codecs=0	maybe	maybe	no
audio/x-wav; codecs=1	probably	maybe	no
audio/x-wav; codecs=2	no	maybe	no
audio/x-pn-wav	maybe	no	no
audio/x-pn-wav; codecs=0	maybe	no	no
audio/x-pn-wav; codecs=1	probably	no	no
audio/x-pn-wav; codecs=2	no	no	no
video/3gpp	no	probably	no
video/3gpp2	no	probably	no
video/avi	no	probably	no
video/mpeg	no	probably	probably
video/x-mpeg	no	probably	no
video/mp4	no	probably	probably
video/mp4; codecs=bogus	no	maybe	probably
video/msvideo	no	probably	no
video/x-msvideo	no	probably	no
video/quicktime	no	probably	no
video/ogg	maybe	no	probably
video/ogg; codecs=bogus	no	no	probably
video/mp4; codecs="avc1.42E01E, mp4a.40.2"	no	maybe	probably
video/mp4; codecs="avc1.58A01E, mp4a.40.2"	no	maybe	probably
video/mp4; codecs="avc1.4D401E, mp4a.40.2"	no	maybe	probably
video/mp4; codecs="avc1.64001E, mp4a.40.2"	no	maybe	probably
video/mp4; codecs="mp4v.20.8, mp4a.40.2"	no	maybe	probably
video/mp4; codecs="mp4v.20.240, mp4a.40.2"	no	maybe	probably
video/3gpp; codecs="mp4v.20.8, samr"	no	maybe	no
video/ogg; codecs="theora, vorbis"	probably	no	probably
video/ogg; codecs="theora, speex"	no	no	probably
audio/ogg; codecs=vorbis	probably	no	probably
audio/ogg; codecs=speex	no	no	probably
audio/ogg; codecs=flac	no	no	probably
video/ogg; codecs="dirac, vorbis"	no	no	probably
video/x-matroska; codecs="theora, vorbis"	no	no	no

MIME types used in the wild (in type="")

• http://simon.html5.org/dump/type-audio-video-philip-dotbot.xml (from 425k pages; thanks, Philip`!)
• http://simon.html5.org/dump/type-audio-video-google-code-search.txt

MIME type defaults in Web servers

• mime.types in Apache (is there a newer one?)
• MIME types in IIS (is there a newer one?)