Codec

Codec is short for coder/decoder. For portability to almost all decoders, we recommend using vcodec=mp1v (MPEG 1 video), acodec=mpga (MPEG 1 layer 1 audio), and mux=mpeg1 (MPEG 1 multiplexing).

Some examples are in the capture card how to

Official documentation: list of codecs

Video Codecs

Use the "name" part in you vcodec=... commands

name	description
mp1v	MPEG-1 Video - recommended for portability
mp2v	MPEG-2 Video - used in DVDs
mp4v	MPEG-4 Video
	Sorenson Video
	Windows Media Video
	Digital Video
MJPG	MJPEG
H263	H263
h264	H264
theo	Theora
	Indeo Video
	Real Media Video
	Cinepak
	On2 VP
	Flash Video
	Creative YUV
	Huffman YUV

Audio Codecs

Use the "name" part in you acodec=... commands

name	description
mpga	MPEG audio (recommended for portability)
mp3	MPEG Layer 3 audio
mp4a	MP4 audio
a52 or ac3	Dolby Digital (A52 or AC3)
	DTS
vorb	Vorbis
spx	Speex
	AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)
	Windows Media Audio
	DV Audio
flac or fl32	FLAC
	LPCM
	ADPCM
	AMR
	QuickTime Audio
	Real Audio
	MACE
	MusePack

Muxers

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

name	description
ts	MPEG Transport Stream, primarily used for streaming MPEG
ps	MPEG Program Stream, primarily used for saving MPEG data to disk
avi	AVI
mp4	MPEG-4
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.