Media files on Wikipedia

Some Wikipedia articles contain sound and video files

Some Wikipedia articles include sound or video files, which can be played on almost all personal computers. However, your computer must have the right software. If your computer does not automatically play these files when you click on them, downloading and installing free software from the Internet can enable it to do so.

Sound files on Wikipedia generally use the Vorbis audio format, and video files use the Theora format. These are roughly similar to other formats used to play digital audio and video such as MP3 and MPEG. The difference is that these Ogg formats are completely free, open, and unpatented. However, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X computers do not support these formats by default, and require additional software to play them (see below).

Music files may occasionally use the MIDI format (.MID or .MIDI extension). MIDI is usually playable without new software, as most computers have a MIDI-enabled player and sound card.

For help making and converting video and audio into the format usable on Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Creation and usage of media files.