MP4 Files

The other day I was "caught" by my girlfriend and asked to D/L some legal music files for her. I am pretty familiar with the WAV, MP3 and normal file formats, but I saw MP4. That was new to me. I googled it and found it is an improved MP3. My question is, that my programs don't have MP4. If I use MP3, will they still read MP4? Thanks,

Yes, video.
It has quite a bit of support.......MP4 File Extension - Open .MP4 files

I'm still waiting for mp3.5 :)

Just double click on the file. The WMP will play it. If you want only the audio and not the video part, convert it to e.g. MP3 with Format Factory Format Factory - Free media file format converter

What Is MPEG-4?

MPEG4 is a file format that is commonly used to store media types defined by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group, though it can store other media types as well. The files of this format usually have extension .mp4.
The start point design of the *.mp4 file format was Apple's QuickTime file format. Having been improved in many ways, today MPEG-4 differs markedly from its predecessor. MPEG-4 allows each streaming over the internet, multiplexing of multiple video and audio streams in one file, variable frame- and bit-rates, subtitles and still images.

Being quite often used as the alternative to *.mp3 on an Apple iPod and in iTunes, *.mp4 is still not as widely used in computer and hardware players as the *.mp3 in spite of the higher quality of the AAC codec.

The following kinds of data are recommended (for compatibility reasons) to be embedded in MPEG-4:

Video: MPEG-4, MPEG-2 and MPEG-1
Audio: MPEG-4 AAC, MP3, MP2, MPEG-1 Part 3, MPEG-2 Part 3, CELP (speech),TwinVQ (very low bitrates), SAOL (midi)
Pictures: JPEG, PNG
Subtitles: MPEG-4 Timed Text, and/or xmt/bt text format (means that subtitles have to be translated into xmt/bt)
Systems: Allows animation, interactivity and DVD-like menus
Here are some file extensions used on files that contain data in the *.mp4 format:

.mp4: official extension, for audio, video and advanced content (see above) files
.m4a: for audio-only files; can safely be renamed to *.mp4, though opinions differ on the wisdom of this.
.m4p: FairPlay protected files
.mp4v, .m4v: video-only (sometimes also used for raw mpeg-4 video streams not in the *.mp4 container format)
.3gp, .3g2: used by 3G mobile phones, may also store content not specified directly in the *.mp4 specification (H.263, AMR, TX3G)

... hope this helps

Yes, MP4 is Video.

But, often audio files are refered to as MP4 as well. They are technicaly MPEG-4 audio, with the extention M4A.
So a mp4 audio file is actually something like ... "SONG.M4A"

Nero Digital and Apple iTunes use this form for audio alot, which uses the AAC codec.

For whatever reason, many refer to this audio format as mp4 which seems confusing to me. Why not call it what it is?
M4A or refer to it as AAC audio.

To me, when someone says they have a MP4 file, I assume it has a video stream, and a Audio stream of some form within that container, Not just a song from a CD.


If you have Apple devices or anything else similar where that format is needed or prefered, may as well rip to M4A in the first place.
Personally, I would just stick to 320 MP3 for compressed audio, but thats just me.