O VLC está dizendo a verdade - parece-me (sem realmente ver o arquivo) que o seu arquivo MP4 é um contêiner MPEG-4 com codecs MPEG-4 sendo usados para áudio e vídeo.
MPEG-4 é ambos a container e um codec :
MPEG-4 is a form of MPEG encoding. It is a flexible audio and video compression format. The format describes audio and video compression, with a container format for streaming across networks and saving to disk. It also contains optional extra features, including DRM and subtitles. These extra features are only included in software if needed. MPEG-4 can provide better quality than MPEG-2 at low bitrates.
MPEG-4 audio is an advanced, complicated audio format. It includes AAC for high bitrates, multilingual tracks, text-to-speech modes for very low bitrates, the ability to synthesize instrumental sounds (similar to MIDI), and more.
Vídeo:
mp4v
This is a video codec.
This codec can be used inside the MPEG-4 containers.
This codec is from the ffmpeg module.
Áudio:
mp4a
This is an audio codec.
This codec can be used inside the MPEG-4 containers.
This codec is from the ffmpeg module.
Se estivéssemos falando sobre o contêiner MP4, poderíamos ver esses tipos de codecs neles:
Accepted video codecs
mp4v, including all the codecs described above
mpgv MJPG
mjpb
SVQ1
SVQ3
H263
h264
Accepted audio codecs
mp4a (is aac)
mpga
samr
sawb
Accepted subtitle codec
subt