1/11/2017 Codec - VideoLAN Wiki

Codec
From VideoLAN Wiki

See Also the Official documentation: list of modules (http://www.videolan.org/doc/vlc-user-

guide/en/ch02.html#id291422)

A part of the program which understands a type of video or audio (short for Coder/Decoder or
Compression/Decompression). DivX and Theora are examples of video codecs; MP3 and Vorbis are audio codecs. The
output stream produced when a codec to audio or video is generally "muxed" into a container format, such as AVI or Ogg.
As certain codecs are often associated with certain container formats, the name of the container is often used to imply the
codec, such as "Ogg", which usually refers to a Vorbis stream in an Ogg container.

To know what codecs are readable with VLC media player, see VLC Features Formats.

For portability to almost all decoders (http://discerning.com/topics/audiovideo/video_encoding.html) , we recommend using

the MPEG-1 standard of vcodec=mp1v, acodec=mpga, and mux=mpeg1. See the MPEG Wiki page for more details on
the other MPEG standards.

To save a file in a different codec, you can use the streaming wizard or transcode from the command prompt with a
command like this:

vlc file --sout='#transcode{vcodec=mp1v, vb=1024, acodec=mpga, ab=128}:std{access=file,

mux=mpeg1, dst=C:\file_name.mpg}'

Contents
1 Video Codecs
2 Audio Codecs
2.1 No-"name" Codecs
3 Subtitle Codecs
4 Muxers
5 See Also

Video Codecs
Use the "name" part in your vcodec=... commands

name description
mp1v MPEG-1 Video - recommended for portability
mp2v MPEG-2 Video - used in DVDs
mp4v MPEG-4 Video
SVQ1 Sorenson Video v1
SVQ3 Sorenson Video v3

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DVDv VOB Video - used in DVDs

WMV1 Windows Media Video v1
WMV2 Windows Media Video v2
WMV3 Windows Media Video v3, also called Windows Media 9 (unsupported)
DVSD Digital Video
MJPG MJPEG
H263 H263
h264 H264
theo Theora
IV20 Indeo Video
IV40 Indeo Video version 4 or later (unsupported)
RV10 Real Media Video
cvid Cinepak
VP31 On2 VP
FLV1 Flash Video
CYUV Creative YUV
HFYU Huffman YUV
MSVC Microsoft Video v1
MRLE Microsoft RLE Video
AASC Autodesc RLE Video
FLIC FLIC video
QPEG QPEG Video
VP8 VP8 Video

Audio Codecs
Use the "name" part in your acodec=... commands

name description
mpga MPEG audio (recommended for portability)
mp3 MPEG Layer 3 audio
mp4a MP4 audio
a52 Dolby Digital (A52 or AC3)
vorb Vorbis
spx Speex
flac or fl32 FLAC

No-"name" Codecs

DTS
AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)
Windows Media Audio
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DV Audio
LPCM
ADPCM
AMR
QuickTime Audio
RealAudio
MACE
MusePack

Subtitle Codecs
See Subtitles Codec for more information.

CVD CVD Subtitles

SVCD (Overlay SVCD Subtitle (OGT) Information (http://www.vcdimager.org/pub/vcdimager/manuals/0.7/svcd-
Graphics) ogt-subtitles.html)
SRT Subrip Subtitles
SSA/ASS Sub Station Alpha or Advanced Sub Station Subtitles
SubViewer SubViewer Subtitles
VobSub VobSub Subtitles
DVD subtitles DVD Subtitles
DVB subtitles DVB Subtitles
VPlayer Vplayer Subtitles
MicroDVD MicroDVD Subtitles
Sami Sami Subtitles

Muxers
Use the "name" part in your mux=... commands

name description
MPEG-1 multiplexing - recommended for portability. Only works with mp1v video and mpga audio, but works
mpeg1
on all known players
ts MPEG Transport Stream, primarily used for streaming MPEG. Also used in DVDs
ps MPEG Program Stream, primarily used for saving MPEG data to disk.
mp4 MPEG-4 mux format, used only for MPEG-4 video and MPEG audio.
avi AVI
asf ASF
dummy dummy output, can be used in creation of MP3 files.
ogg Xiph.org's (http://www.xiph.org/) ogg container format. Can contain audio, video, and metadata.

See Also
FourCC and http://www.fourcc.org/
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1/11/2017 Codec - VideoLAN Wiki

http://discerning.com/topics/audiovideo/video_encoding.html

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