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MPEG
What is an MPEG file?
The original digital video standard, still what DVDs and old camcorders produce.
What MPEG is
MPEG is a container: a wrapper that holds streams encoded by something else. It is used for broadcast and archiving.
The extension is .mpeg, and the full name is MPEG Video. Both matter less than what the file can hold, which is what the rest of this page is about.
Where MPEG came from
MPEG published it in 1993. The specification is ISO/IEC 11172.
A format that has been readable for that long is a format worth trusting with something you want back in ten years.
The specification is public
Anyone can implement it without asking permission or paying a licence, which is why it turns up in so many programs and why files written twenty years ago still open.
It is a legacy format
It still opens everywhere and is still written by older tools, but nothing new is being built around it. Convert what you mean to keep, and do not choose it for something starting today.
MPEG is a box, and the codec is what is in it
It usually holds MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. This is the distinction behind most "why will this not play" questions: two files with the same extension can contain entirely different encodings, and a player that refuses one may be perfectly happy with the other.
It also explains why changing container is often fast and lossless while changing codec is neither. Moving the same stream into a different box rewrites the box; re-encoding rewrites the picture.
What else it can carry
MPEG can hold a layout that lets it start playing before it has finished arriving.
That matters mostly when converting: whatever the target cannot hold is dropped, usually without a warning.
What opens MPEG
VLC and FFmpeg read it, and so do most programs of the same kind.
If a file will not open, the format is rarely the problem — it is more often that the program predates it. Converting to something older is the reliable way past that, and it is what the rest of this site is for.
Opening it in a browser
No browser reads it.
That is the single most common reason to convert it: not that the format is bad, but that the place you want to show the file cannot read it.
It is a delivery format
MPEG is meant to be handed over rather than worked in. Editing one is possible and rarely pleasant; the sane approach is to change the source and export again.
What goes wrong with it
The recurring complaints: the files are large for what they contain.
None of these is a reason to avoid the format. They are the things worth knowing before you are surprised by one, which is a different claim and a more useful one.
The facts, in one place
| Extension | .mpeg, .mpg, .mpe |
|---|---|
| Media type | video/mpeg |
| Published by | MPEG |
| First published | 1993 |
| Specification | ISO/IEC 11172 |