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MP4 vs MOV
Nearly the same container; MP4 is the one to hand over.
Choose MP4 when
Sharing, uploading and playback anywhere. MP4 is the most widely accepted video container there is.
Choose MOV when
Editing inside the Apple ecosystem, where MOV carries the extras — ProRes, timecode, alpha — that a delivery format drops.
The thing that catches people out
Both are the same underlying container, so converting between them is often a rewrap rather than a re-encode: fast, and without a second generation of quality loss.
Side by side
| MP4 | MOV | |
|---|---|---|
| Full name | MPEG-4 Video | QuickTime Movie |
| Extension | .mp4 | .mov, .qt |
| Media type | video/mp4 | video/quicktime |
| Compression | Lossy — file size is bought with quality | Lossy — file size is bought with quality |
| This site can write it | Yes | Yes |