Supported file types

This section describes the file types supported by the Media Fetch API and the metadata system (MdS).

The Media Fetch API and the metadata system support the following types of multimedia items:

  • Video files

  • Audio files

  • Image files

  • Streaming links

  • Playlist files

The following table describes the supported video files.

Table 1. Supported video files

File extension

MIME type

Description

3g2

video/3gp

3GP is a multimedia container format that is defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for use on 3G mobile devices but that can also be played on some 2G and 4G devices.

The 3GPP2 standard is defined for CDMA-based devices and has the file extension 3g2.

3gp

video/3gp

The 3GPP standard is defined for GSM-based devices and has the file extension 3gp.

avi

video/avi

Audio video interleave (AVI) is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback.

flv

video/x-flv

Flash video is a file format used to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player. Flash video content may also be embedded within SWF files.

m4v

video/mp4

M4V is a standard file format for videos for iPod and PlayStation Portable devices developed by Apple. It is based on the MPEG-4 Part 2 compression.

mp4

video/mp4

MPEG-4 is a multimedia container format standard that is most commonly used to store digital audio and digital video streams, especially those defined by MPEG. It can also be used to store other data such as subtitles and still images.

MPEG-4 files with audio and video generally use the standard mp4 extension.

mpeg4

video/mp4

Another file name extension for MPEG-4 files.

mpg4

video/mp4

Another file name extension for MPEG-4 files.

ram

video/3gpp

RealAudio metadata (RAM) is typically a small text file that contains a link to the audio stream.

rm

application/vnd.rn-realmedia

RealMedia is a multimedia container format created by RealNetworks that is typically used in conjunction with RealVideo and RealAudio for streaming content over the Internet.

rmvb

application/vnd.rn-realmedia-vbr

RealMedia variable bitrate (RMVB) is a container streaming content over the Internet with variable bit rate.

rtp

application/x-nokia-teh-rtp

rv

video/vnd.rn-realvideo

RealVideo is a proprietary video format developed by RealNetworks that is usually paired with RealAudio and packaged in a RealMedia (rm) container.

The following table describes the supported audio files.

Table 2. Supported audio files

File extension

MIME type

Description

3gp

audio/3gpp

The 3GPP standard is defined for GSM-based devices and has the file extension 3gp.

3gpp

audio/3gpp

Another file name extension for 3GPP files.

aac

audio/aac

Advanced audio coding (AAC) is a standardized, compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at many bit rates.

amr

audio/amr

A file format for storing spoken audio using the adaptive multi-rate (AMR) codec. AMR is a patented audio data compression scheme optimized for speech coding.

au

audio/au

A simple audio file format.

awb

audio/amr-wb

Adaptive multi-rate – wide band (AMR-WB) is a patented speech coding standard developed after the AMR that provides excellent speech quality due to wider speech bandwidth.

m4a

audio/mp4

Audio-only MPEG-4 files generally have an m4a extension. This is especially true of non-protected content.

mid

audio/midi

Musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) is an industry-standard protocol that enables electronic musical instruments, such as keyboard controllers, computers, and other electronic equipment, to communicate, control, and synchronize with each other.

midi

audio/midi

Another file name extension for MIDI files.

mp3

audio/mpeg

MPEG-1 audio layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio storage and widely used for digital audio compression for the transfer and playback of music on digital audio players.

mp4

audio/mp4

MPEG-4 files with audio and video generally use the standard mp4 extension.

mxmf

audio/vnd.nokia.mobile-xmf

The extensible music format (XMF) is a tree-based digital container format used to bundle music-oriented content, such as a MIDI file and optionally the sounds it uses, liner notes or other content grouped by language-codes.

nrt

-

Nokia Ringing Tone.

ra

audio/vnd.rn-realaudio

RealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music.

rng

application/vnd.nokia.ringing-tone

Nokia Ringing Tone.

spmid

audio/sp-midi

Scalable polyphony MIDI (SP-MIDI) is a MIDI variant for mobile applications where different players may have different numbers of musical voices. SP-MIDI is a component of 3GPP.

wav

audio/wav

Waveform audio format is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bit stream on computers.

wma

audio/x-ms-wma

Windows Media Audio (WMA) is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft as a part of the Windows Media framework.

The following table describes the supported image files.

Table 3. Supported image files

File extension

MIME type

Description

bmp

image/bmp

An image file format used to store digital images.

gif

image/gif

Graphics interchange format (GIF) is a bitmap image format that provides good-quality color images that take up a small amount of space.

j2k

image/jp2

JPEG 2000 is a wavelet-based image compression standard.

Files that contain JPEG 2000 code stream data for testing purposes might use the filename extension j2k.

jp2

image/jp2

Files that conform to the JPEG 2000 specification, ISO/IEC 15444-1, use the standardized filename extension jp2.

jpeg

image/jpeg

JPEG is a method for compressing photographic images.

jpf

image/jp2

Another file name extension for JPEG 2000 files.

jpg

image/jpeg

Another file name extension for JPEG files.

jpx

image/jpx

Files that conform to the extended part-2 JPEG 2000 specification, ISO/IEC 15444-2, use the filename extension jpx.

mbm

image/x-epoc-mbm

A multi-bitmap is a container for a set of bitmap images. MBM files can be used by Symbian applications to store graphical content.

ota

image/vnd.nokia.ota-bitmap

Over-the-air (OTA) images.

png

image/png

Portable networking graphics (PNG) is a bit map image format that was designed for transferring images on the Internet.

tif

image/tiff

Tagged image file format (TIFF) is a file format for storing images, including photographs and line art.

tiff

image/tiff

Another file name extension for TIFF files.

wbmb

image/vnd.wap.wbmp

Wireless bitmap (WBMP) is a monochrome image file format that is optimized for mobile devices.

wmf

image/x-wmf

Windows metafile (WMF) is a graphics file format on Microsoft Windows systems that is intended to be portable between applications and may contain both vector and bitmap components.

The following table describes the supported streaming links.

Table 4. Supported streaming links

File extension

MIME type

Description

asx

video/x-ms-asf

Advanced systems format (ASF) is a Microsoft proprietary digital audio and digital video container format, especially meant for streaming media. The most common file types contained within an ASF file are Windows media audio (WMA) and Windows media video (WMV).

sdp

application/sdp

Streaming Download Project Multimedia is a source project to allow the download of streaming media.

ram

audio/vnd.rn-realaudio

RealAudio metadata (RAM) is typically a small text file that contains a link to the audio stream.

The following table describes the supported playlist files.

Table 5. Supported playlist files

File extension

MIME type

Description

m3u

audio/x-mpegurl

Moving Picture Experts Group Audio Layer 3 Uniform Resource Locator, MP3 URL is a computer file format that stores multimedia playlists.

See also

Supported Image Formats Guide

Video Renderer Resource File

Querying for Parser Supported Formats