Every year new video formats are introduced, and some older formats grow to be practically obsolete. It helps to keep tabs of such changes by watching some of the top video formats.
As things stand 2019 looks to be shaping up to be a fairly exciting year for video formats, and there are several top formats that you should keep an eye on:
- MP4 with H.264
For some time MP4 with H.264 has been the ‘king’ of video formats and is the most popular and widely-supported format. It is used extensively for video distribution, streaming, and online videos in general.
While MP4 with H.264 is unlikely to be supplanted in 2019, it is facing a stiff challenge. Its limitations make it unable to cope well with the needs of higher resolutions, especially UHD, 4K and eventually 8K video streaming.
In short 2019 could be the year when the popularity of MP4 with H.264 finally starts to wane, or at very least by the time it is over a firm contender for its position should emerge.
- HEVC (H.265)
Seeing as it was designed as the successor to H.264, it was expected that HEVC would eventually replace it. Its adoption has been slowed by its complicated licensing and royalty structure that is split amongst numerous stakeholders.
While HEVC is better equipped to handle higher resolution videos and provides better compression than H.264, it is still not as widely supported and many video distributors have stayed away from it due to is complicated (and high) costs. Now that it is being challenged by AV1 it may have difficulty competing, unless changes to its licensing structure are made in 2019.
- AV1
As the new kid on the block, AV1 has shown a lot of early promise. It is open and royalty-free, and is backed by the powerful AOMedia consortium members that include numerous tech and video giants.
Although AV1 will not completely replace either HEVC or MP4 with H.264 during the course of 2019, a clearer picture of its role should start to emerge. Already software decoders have started to surface, but hardware decoders and support are only expected towards the latter part of 2019 and 2020.
- MPEG-2
Despite its age, the MPEG-2 format has remained relevant due to the fact that it is the format of choice for video DVDs, and often used as an intermediate format for editing. The waning popularity of DVDs has affected it, as more and more users shift to Blu-ray or digital files.
Although MPEG-2 is probably not going to become obsolete just yet, its popularity will probably decrease over the course of 2019.
For now it is safe to say that in most cases you will want to convert video to MP4 with H.264 – so long as it remains as popular and widely-supported as it currently is. However in some specific cases you may want to use HEVC already, which is why it helps if your converter supports it. For example you could try using Movavi Video Converter if you need one that does.
If you keep tabs on the formats listed above, you should be able to track any new developments that may affect them. That will let you plan which format you should be using to future-proof your videos more effectively.
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