YUV

YUV is a colorspace and a way to represent pixels colours, based on Luminance and Chrominance.

Planar

YUV 4:2:0 (I420/YV12)

I420

In I420, you have luma "luminance" planes Y and chroma planes U, V.

In I420, chroma planes (blue and red projections) are subsampled in both the horizontal and vertical dimensions by a factor of 2.

For a 2x2 group of pixels, you have 4 Y samples and 1 U and 1 V sample.

YV12

YV12 is exactly like I420, but with U and V order reversed.

NV12/NV21

NV12

Related to I420, in NV12, you have one luma "luminance" planes Y and one plane with U and V data interleaved. NV12 is considered as semiplanar.

In NV12, chroma planes (blue and red) are subsampled in both the horizontal and vertical dimensions by a factor of 2.

For a 2x2 group of pixels, you have 4 Y samples and 1 U and 1 V sample.

NV21

NV21 is like NV12, but with U and V order reversed: it starts with V

YUV 4:2:2

I422

In I422, like in I420, you have luma "luminance" planes Y and chroma planes U, V.

However, in I422, chroma planes (blue and red projections) are subsampled just in the horizontal dimension by a factor of 2. There is the same amount of lines than in the luma.

For a 2x2 group of pixels, you have 4 Y samples and 2 U and 2 V sample.

Packed

In packed formats, you only have one plane, with all the luma and chroma interleaved.

UYVY

Know as UYVY, Y422, UYNV

In UYVY, the chroma samples are sub-sampled by a factor of 2.

In UYVY, the succession for 2 pixels, starts by U then one luma, then V again and then another luma.

YUY2

Know as YUY2, YUYV, V422, YUNV

In YUY2, the chroma samples are sub-sampled by a factor of 2.

In YUY2, the succession for 2 pixels, starts by one luma, thenU, then another luma and then V again.

YVYU

YVYU is just like YUY2, but with U and V order reversed.

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