Video File Extensions For Mac

What Video File Formats Are Compatible with and Supported by MacBook Pro/Air, iMac, Mac Pro, Mac mini?

Browse file extensions by file type category: Digital video and movie file type extensions (693 file extension database entries) File extensions used for various multimedia file types - movies, films, videos, animations and other file types related to digital video software, video players and digital video editing. Got an Apple, Mac or iOS tech question? We have the answer. This time, we answer a reader's question about file extensions in OS X. Some people like 'em, some people don't - once upon a time, Mac.

What video format do ALL macs have? I'm creating a powerpoint presentation and am converting it to video being playable on computers so that powerpoint doesn't need to be installed on clients computers. Thank you!

Indeed, as WMV is for windows, the very native video for a Mac computer is MOV. You can import video files like MOV, QT, MPEG-4, M4V, H.264, 3GP, MP3, AAC, etc to QuickTime Player. And MOV is the most common one. Since QuickTime Player is the default player for all Mac desktop and notebook types, be it iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook or Mac Pro, the video formats supported by QuickTime will also be compatible with Mac computer running OS X v10.6.x or later, or even the latest macOS Catalina.

Mac Video Audio Formats & Codecs Supported

Mac Supported Video File Formats
QuickTime Movie (.mov), MPEG-4 (.mp4, .m4v), MPEG-2 (OSX 10.0-10.6 are exclusive), MPEG-1, 3GPP, 3GPP2, AVCHD (OSX 10.0-10.7 are exclusive), AVI ((Motion JPEG only), DV;
Mac Supported Video Codecs
MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, H.263 H.261, Apple ProRes, Apple Pixlet, Animation, Cinepak, Component Video, DV, DVC Pro 50, Graphics, Motion JPEG, Photo JPEG, Sorenson Video 2, Sorenson Video 3, H.263, H.261, Apple ProRes, Apple Pixlet, Animation, Cinepak, Component Video, DV, DVC Pro 50, Graphics, Motion JPEG, Photo JPEG, Sorenson Video 2, Sorenson Video 3
Mac Supported Audio File Formats
M4A, m4b, .m4p (all are iTunes audio), MP3, Core Audio (.caf), AIFF, AU, SD2, WAV, SND, AMR
Mac Supported Audio Codecs
AAC, HE-AAC, Apple Lossless,MP3, AMR Narrowband, MS ADPCM, QDesign Music 2, Qualcomm PureVoice (QCELP), IMA 4:1, MACE 3:1 (Mac OS X 10.6.x only), MACE 6:1 (Mac OS X 10.6.x only), ALaw 2:1, ULaw 2:1, Integer (24-bit, 32-bit), Floating Point (32-Bit,64-Bit)

What Are the Best Video Formats for Mac Computer?

Not all Mac supported video formats can be called the best video formats for Mac, but the following three surely can:

• MOV: Using the special compression algorithm developed by Apple's Mac, MOV is a very common multimedia format often used for saving movies and other video files, compatible with both Macintosh and Windows platforms. It is the born video format for QuickTIme of Mac.

• MP4: MP4, as an abbreviated term for MPEG-4 Part 14, is an international standard that has more support. It is a container format, allowing a combination of audio, video, subtitles and still images to be held in the one single file. It also allows for advanced content such as 3D graphics, menus and user interactivity. MP4 files are supported by many video programs and various hardware devices, Sony PSP and various DVD players, most DirectShow/Video for Windows codec packs.

• M4V: M4V video file format is developed by Apple Inc., who uses it to flag as a video file and attach it to iTunes, by encoding TV episodes, movies, and music videos in the iTunes Store under official DRM copy protection; therefore, put it in other way, the copy-protected Apple video using FairPlay DRM copyright protection on the basis of MPEG-4 AVC video compression. It can be played directly by QuickTime Player, VLC, RealPlayer, DAPlayer, MPayer and some other HD video players.

But please note that both the MOV and MP4 container formats can use the same MPEG-4 formats, so almost they are interchangeable in a QuickTime-only environment.

How to Make Mac Supports More Videos?

Indeed, the supported video formats of Mac QuickTime can be extended by use of some third-party codec plug-ins. But perhaps you need to install a pile of such components one by one to make it more supportive. And in many cases, users are afraid of the adware and malware. So there is another once-and-for-all way to make all kinds of videos playable on MacBook, iMac, MacMini and Mac Pro running even on macOS Catalina (10.15) or lower, no matter what version of OS it is running – by converting AVI (DivX, Xvid), MPEG,WMV, AVCHD, MTS/M2TS, VOB, FLV, RM, RMVB, WebM, Google TV, 3GP, etc to Mac supported videos with the best Mac video converter in the following procedure.

A. If you want to convert videos on Mac, just download WinX HD Video Converter for Mac on any type of Mac computer;
B. If you want to convert videos existing on your Windows to Mac videos, just download WinX HD Video Converter Deluxe on PC.

Their operations of converting one video to Mac accept one work in the same way. Here please allow me to take converting MTS to Mac supported video M4V as an illustration:

Step 1: Click '+Video' button, browse in the computer, find an MKV file as the source video, click Open and start importing it;

Step 2: Navigate to video target format section, where you can choose either M4V (H.264) or MOV/MP4 Video (MPEG4/H264) as the output format and click OK. You can choose among LQ, standard and HQ when double click the format to pop up a parameters control;

Step 3: Hit RUN button on the right to start convert the video to be Mac compatible.

About the Author

Matthew Palmer@matthew_palmer

Matthew Palmer is a seasoned content creator with over 10 years of experience in Windows at large. He has been specialized in almost any technology with Windows OS and written thousands of new articles, covering everything from in-depth features of new laptops, latest GPU/CPU PC hardware, games, to software related. While digging into new techs, she continues enjoying painting and comics.

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Best Video File Format For Mac

Part 3: Solution to Play Video/Audio Format Files Unsupported by QuickTime

For the video and audio files beyond the above-mentioned list, QuickTime will go on strike. Fortunately Apple users may call for its plugin for help, like the popular Perian that is known as a free, open-source QuickTime component, letting you play any media file type you want once it is installed. Unfortunately, a great number of people complained that perian is incompatible with Mac Mavericks, let along the Yosemite, and want an alternative solution. In request for this, we have screened out some useful third-party video converter software to solve the problem - MacX Video Converter Pro is the most remarkable one to change the file into QuickTime video format, or convert QuickTime to MP4.

It is the Swiss-army knife, letting you convert any videos like MKV, WMV, 3GP, MTS, AVCHD, FLV, AVI, etc to MOV, MP4, MP3, etc. You just load the unreadable video, choose the MP4 or MOV format from 'Mac General Video' and then click 'RUN' button to start the video conversion. Just three steps, you can finish the video conversion and therefore playback any video in QuickTime. What's more, you can also DIY your converted video file like crop, trim, add watermark or add subtitle to better suit your QuickTime player.

Author: Candice Liu | Updated on May 25, 2020