why does video need to be in video container files? and why do those file need to be in multimedia container files?

[HowToHB]

this might be a tough question but i feel the need to ask

why does video need to be in video container files? and why do those file need to be in multimedia container files?

when people where first combining video with audio inside computers, why the need for these complex file format layers? why does a video and and audio file need to be in it's own video file format and codec, and then that file need to be in it's own container file?

thank you

[rollin_eng]

A container is just an easy way to contain all the bits of a “video”. You have video, audio, subtitles and other things that can be stored in the container.

Different formats and codecs are used/created by different people over time.

https://handbrake.fr/docs/en/1.5.0/tech ... iners.html

[mduell]

It doesn't; you can have just a video stream as a file.

You may find it useful to have multiple streams in a file, and the container helps to understand what you have and where to find it.