Section 2 of 6
The file is not the format
AVI holding what it should not have, and what replaced it.
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AVI held things it was never designed to hold
The AVI container came from 1992 and predates most of what people put in it, which is why variable bitrate audio and modern subtitles fit so badly.
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Matroska was designed for exactly what AVI could not do
MKV was built as an open, extensible container with real support for multiple tracks, chapters and subtitle formats.
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MP4 came out of a committee and won anyway
The MP4 container derives from Apple's QuickTime file format by way of the MPEG process, and it is what the web settled on.
Short