Common Abbreviations

There are a number of file types and abbreviations that you will encounter, some you will be familiar with others you may not. Here is a list of most of the common ones that you will find used.

.AC3: Is an audio codec often used within .AVI files. If you have a video but no sound then you probably need to download this codec.

.AVI: This is a video file and most multimedia programs will allow you to access them. Although you may need an AVI Codec. Them your media player on your computer will let you watch the film. However, to watch it on your DVD player you will need to convert it to another file format which is compatible with DVD players.

.BUP: Back up of IFO, see IFO. 

.DIVX: This is also a video file and the codec required for this format can be found here.Further information can be found under AVI.

.DOC: Doc files require a document reader, such as Word, Word Pad, OpenOffice or indeed the free Word Viewer available from Microsoft.

DVDRIP: This is not a file format, but indicates the film was extracted from a DVD rather than some other form of medium. Usually this will indicate a good quality reproduction of the original.

.IFO: An IFO file is one of three types of files that are used on DVDs. It contains important navigational information, such as where a video chapter begins, and where audio and subtitle streams exist within the movie (VOB) file. IFO files are not encrypted. (Ref Wikipedia)

.JPG: This is a graphic image - better known as a J-PEG picture. Your Operating system should let you open this kind of picture simply by double clicking on it.

.MKV: This is the Matroska audio video container format. It is not a codec, but allows you to have numerous types of file all wrapped up into one neat package. Most multimedia players will understand this format now.

.MP3: This is the 3rd generation MPEG file format. Most computers have MP3 decoders present. However, if you still need one, this one may help.

.MP4: This is the 4th generation MPEG file format. It is commonly used in handheld multimedia devices - strangly enough called MP4 Players. You will need a suitable MP4 codec such as this one. 

.NFO: This is an Information TEXT file. Under Windws, it is usually mistaken as a System Information File. You need to open this in Windows by right-clicking it and selecting open with. In the window that appears select or browse for either Notepade or Wordpad.

.RAR: This is an archive file, or a compressed file from RarLabs. If you have WinZip installed I suggest that you uninstall it, and install WinRar, or whatever Rar version is appropriate for your operating system. It does everything WinZip does, plus a lot more, and I think, it does it better.

.SFV: This is the "Simple File Verification" file that some nice uploaders include to help you decide if what you have received is what you were supposed to. It is particularly good if you are having problems opening a file you normally open without effort. For more information you can read about it here.  Of course you need a program to do the comparison - A windows Command Line version is available here for free. If you know of a free GUI version let me know through the comments. If there is not one, I may have to create one for you.

.SRT: This is a sub-title file. Normally the language of the file preceeds the .srt so you will have a film called Film1.avi, plus another file called Film1_en.srt which indicates the English language subtitles or Film1_fr.srt indicating the French language subtitles. I wont bore you with a full list of language abbreviations here. The subtitle file excluding the language part of it, must have the exact same name as the film, for your multimedia player to pick it up. You May also, notice people saying Hard Subs,  these are subtitles that are pre-processed onto the film, so you can not turn them off.

.VOB: Vob files (Video Object) are container format files contained in DVD-Video media. VOB is based on MPEG-2 program stream format, but with additional limitations and specifications in the private streams. It contains the actual Video, Audio, Subtitle, and Menu contents in stream form. Usually you can watch VOB files on your multimedia player without alteration.