Video Codecs


Codec is a portmanteau of "coder/decoder", which describes a device or program capable of performing transformations on a data stream or signal. Codecs can both put the stream or signal into an encoded form (often for transmission, storage or encryption) and retrieve, or decode that form for viewing or manipulation in a format more appropriate for these operations. Codecs are often used in videoconferencing and streaming media solutions.

For instance, many multimedia data streams need to contain both audio and video data, and often some form of metadata that permits synchronization of the audio and video. Each of these three pieces of data may be handled by different programs, processes, or hardware; but for the multimedia data stream to be useful in stored or transmitted form, they must be encapsulated together.

The codec is not to be confused with the video file format (or container) used to store the a/v information encoded by the codec. File formats like ".ogg", ".tta", ".mpg", ".avi", ".mov", etc. could be used to store information encoded by different codecs (eg. avi can contain DivX and Xvid also).

Here you can find the most popular video codecs on the Net:

FOURCC Name Company
3IV 3ivx D4 4.5.1 3IVX
DIV3 DivX Codec DivXNetworks, Inc
DIVX DivX Codec DivXNetworks, Inc
DVSD DV Codec Panasonic
DX50 DivX Codec DivXNetworks, Inc
GEOX Geovision's CCTV MPEG-4 codec GeoVision
IV50 Indeo Interactive Intel
M4S2 MPEG-4 (automatic WMP download) Microsoft
MJPG PICVideo M-JPEG Codec v3 IBM
mp42 Microsoft MPEG-4 V1/2/3
mp43 Microsoft MPEG-4 V1/2/3
mpg4 Microsoft MPEG-4 V1/2/3
TSCC TechSmith Screen Capture Codec Techsmith Corp
WMV3 Windows Media Video 9 Microsoft
XVID XviD Codec xvid.org
yv12 YV12 QuickTime Codec 1.0a2