Codec

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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, 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}'

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
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
RV10 Real Media Video
cvid Cinepak
VP31 On2 VP3
FLV1 Flash Video
CYUV Creative YUV
HFYU Huffman YUV
MSVC Microsoft Video v1
MRLE Microsoft RLE Video
AASC Autodesk Animator Studio Codec 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
opus Opus
spx Speex
flac FLAC

No-"name" Codecs

Subtitle Codecs

See Subtitles codecs for more information.

CVD CVD
SVCD (Overlay Graphics) SVCD Subtitle (OGT) Information
SRT SubRip
SSA/ASS SubStation Alpha
SubViewer SubViewer
VobSub VobSub
DVD subtitles DVD subtitles
DVB subtitles DVB subtitles
VPlayer Vplayer
MicroDVD MicroDVD
SAMI SAMI

Muxers

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

name description
mpeg1 MPEG-1 multiplexing - recommended for portability. Only works with mp1v video and mpga audio, but works 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 ogg container format. Can contain audio, video, and metadata.

See Also

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