VLC Features Formats
This is an unofficial and experimental page that lists the audio/video codecs that VLC can or cannot read. You can get the official features page on VideoLAN website.
Don't use this page as a reference
If you have any question about those codecs, just consult our Knowledge Base or our friends on the Multimedia Wiki.
Video Codecs
| Name | FOURCC | Playable | Encoder | library | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MPEG-1 Part 2 | mpeg, mp1v, mpg1, PIM1 | Yes | Yes | libmpeg2 , ffmpeg | |
| MPEG-2 Part 2 | mp2v, mpg2, vcr2, hdv1, hdv2, hdv3, mx*n, mx*p | Yes | Yes | libmpeg2 , ffmpeg | |
| Divx (1, 2, 3) | DIV1, DIV2, DIV3, mp41, mp42, MPG4, MPG3 | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg | |
| DivX 4, 5, 6 , 3ivx D4, MPEG-4 | DIV4, DIV5, DIV6, col1, col0, 3ivd | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg | |
| MPEG-4 Part 2 | DIVX, Xvid, mp4s, m4s2, xvid, mp4v, fmp4, 3iv2, smp4, ... | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg | |
| H.264 / X.264 | h264, s264, AVC1, DAVC, H264, X264, VSSH | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg (decode), x264 (encode) | |
| Sorenson 1 (Quicktime) | SVQ 1 | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg | |
| Sorenson 3 (Quicktime) | SVQ 3 | Yes | No | ffmpeg | |
| DV | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg | ||
| Cinepak | cvid | Yes | No | internal, ffmpeg | |
| Theora | thra | Yes | Yes broken | libtheora | |
| H.263 / H.263i | h263 | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg | |
| H.261 | h261 | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg | |
| MJPEG (A/B) | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg ??? | ||
| WMV 1/2 (7/8) | wmv1, wmv2 | Yes | Yes | ffmepg | |
| WMV 3 / WMV-9 / VC-1 | wmv3, wvc1, wmva | Yes | No | ffmpeg | |
| On2 VP6 (used by FLV) | VP60, VP61, VP62, VP6F | Yes | No | ffmpeg | |
| On2 VP3, VP5 | VP31, VP30, VP3, VP50, VP5, VP51 | Yes | No | ffmpeg | |
| Flash Screen Video | FSV1 | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg | |
| Indeo Video v3 | IV31, IV32 | Yes | No | ?? | |
| Indeo Video v4/5 | IV41, IV51 | No | No | ?? | |
| Real Video 1.0, 1.3, 2.0 | RV10, RV13, RV20 | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg | |
| Real Video 3, 10 | RV30, RV40 | No | No | ||
| Dirac | BBCD | Yes | Yes | dirac | |
| Huffyuv / Lagarith | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg |
| Rare codecs ! | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Animation, Graphics, Video, QuickDraw | 'rle','smc ','rpza', 'qdrw' | Yes | No | ffmpeg | |
| SheerVideo | No | No | Professional use, no open source decoders | ||
| CorePNG | ?? | ?? | |||
| MSU Lossless | ?? | ?? | |||
| Snow | Yes | Yes | |||
| VP 7 | No | No | |||
| Pixlet | ?? | ?? | |||
| Rare codecs (Asus V1, Asus V2) | ASV1, ASV2 | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg | |
| Game Codecs (Some) | Yes | No | ffmpeg |
Audio Codecs
| Name | FOURCC | Decoder | Encoder | library | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MPEG-Audio 1 Layer-2 | mpga | Yes | Yes | libmad (decoding), twolame (encoding) | ISO/IEC MPEG |
| MP3 | mp3, .mp3, LAME | Yes | Yes | libmad (decoding), ffmpeg-mp3lame | ISO/IEC MPEG - (recompile needed) |
| AAC | mp4a | Yes | Yes | faad (decode), faac (encoding) | ISO/IEC MPEG |
| HE-AAC | Yes | Yes | faad (decode), faac (encoding) | ISO/IEC MPEG | |
| AC-3 | a52, a52b | Yes | Yes | liba52 (decode), ffmpeg (encode) | |
| ATRAC | atrc | Yes | No | ||
| iLBC | untested ??? | untested ??? | to check | ||
| Mu-Law | Yes | No | ffmpeg | (check for encoder) | |
| NellyMoser | No | No | to chek | ||
| Real Audio | lpcJ, 28_8, dnet, sipr, cook, atrc, raac, racp, ralf | Yes | No | Some works. ralf don't | |
| Shorten | shrn | No | No | ffmpeg and ffplay do it. VLC doesn't. (It is in the FOURCC list in VLC's ffmpeg.c Dionoea) | |
| Speex | spex | Yes | Yes | libspeex | |
| Vorbis | vorb | Yes | Yes | libvorbis | |
| DTS | dts | Yes | No | libdca | DTS-HD unsupported |
| MPC | Yes | No | libmpcdec | ||
| WMA 1/2 | wma1, wma2 | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg | WMA9 is not supported |
| Flac | flac | Yes | Yes | libflac | lossless |
| Apple Lossless Audio Codec | alac | Yes | No | ffmpeg | lossless |
| Monkey's Audio | No | No | lossless - NON FREE LICENSE | ||
| Musepack | Yes | No | libmpcdec | ||
| ADMPCM (various) | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg and internal | ||
| AMR | samr | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg + libamrnb + libamrwb | RECOMPILE VLC for this |
| Sonic | SONC | Yes | Yes | ffmpeg |
Subtitles Codecs
See SubtitlesCodec for the matter.
