Mercurial > mplayer.hg
annotate DOCS/formats.html @ 5094:570ffe8dcc67
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| date | Fri, 15 Mar 2002 16:38:36 +0000 |
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13 <FONT CLASS="text"> |
| 2745 | 14 |
| 15 <P><B><A NAME=2.1>2.1. Supported formats</A></B></P> | |
| 16 | |
| 17 <P>It's important to clarify a popular mistake. When people see a file with | |
| 18 <B>.AVI</B> extension, they instantly declare that isn't an MPEG file. | |
| 19 That's not true. At least not entirely. If you tell them that such a file | |
| 20 can contain MPEG1 video, they laugh at you. Feel free to kick their dumbass | |
| 21 faces, then tell them to RTFM.</P> | |
| 22 | |
| 23 <P>You see, a <B>codec</B> isn't equal to a <B>file format</B>.<BR> | |
| 24 Video <B>codecs</B> are: MPEG1, MPEG2, DivX, Indeo5, 3ivx.<BR> | |
| 2865 | 25 Video <B>formats</B> are: MPG, AVI, ASF.<BR> |
| 2745 | 26 </P> |
| 27 | |
| 28 <P>In theory, you can happily put an OpenDivX video and MP3 audio | |
| 29 into a <B>.MPG</B> format file. Though most players won't play it, since | |
| 30 they expect MPEG1 video and MP2 audio (<B>.MPG</B> doesn't have the | |
| 31 necessary fields to describe its video and audio streams, like <B>.AVI</B> | |
| 4177 | 32 does). Or put MPEG1 video to an .AVI. For example <A HREF="http://ffmpeg.sourceforge.net">ffmpeg</A> |
| 33 and <A HREF="encoding.html">MEncoder</A> can create these files.</P> | |
| 2745 | 34 |
| 35 <P>Audio <B>codecs</B> and <B>formats</B> are basically the same terms.</P> | |
| 36 | |
| 37 | |
| 38 <P><B><A NAME=2.1.1>2.1.1. Video formats</A></B></P> | |
| 39 | |
| 40 | |
| 2865 | 41 <P><B><A NAME=2.1.1.1>2.1.1.1. MPEG files</A></B></P> |
| 2745 | 42 |
| 43 <P> | |
| 44 <LI>MPG : this is the most <B>basic</B> form of MPEG file formats. Contains | |
| 2865 | 45 MPEG1 video, and MP2 (MPEG-1 layer 2) audio, or rarely MP1.</LI> |
| 46 <LI>DAT : this is the very same format as MPG, just different extension. Used | |
| 47 on <B>Video CD</B>s. Due to the nature VCDs are created and Linux is designed, | |
| 2745 | 48 the DAT files can't be played nor copied from VCDs. You have to use the |
| 49 <CODE>-vcd</CODE> option to play the VideoCD.</LI> | |
| 2865 | 50 <LI>VOB : this is the MPEG file format on <B>DVD</B>s. The same as MPG, plus |
| 51 capability to contain subtitles, or non-MPEG (AC3) audio. Contains encoded MPEG2 | |
| 52 video, and usually AC3 audio, but MP2 is allowed too.<BR> | |
| 53 <B>Read the <A HREF="cd-dvd.html#4.2">DVD section</A> !</B></LI> | |
| 2745 | 54 </P> |
| 55 | |
| 2865 | 56 <P>In MPEG files, series of frames are grouped together, and are independent |
| 57 from the other groups. What this means is you can cut/join an MPEG file with | |
| 58 standard file-tools (like dd, cut), and it remains completely functional.</P> | |
| 59 | |
| 2761 | 60 <P>One important feature for MPGs is that they have a field to describe |
| 61 the aspect ratio of the video stream within. For example SVCDs have | |
| 62 480x480 resolution video, and in the header that field is set to 4:3, so | |
| 63 it's played at 640x480. AVI files don't have this field, so one has to | |
| 2865 | 64 rescale it during encoding.</P> |
| 2761 | 65 |
| 2745 | 66 |
| 67 <P><B><A NAME=2.1.1.2>2.1.1.2. AVI files</A></B></P> | |
| 68 | |
| 69 <P>Designed by Micro$oft, the <B>AVI (Audio Video Interleaved)</B> is a | |
| 70 widespread multipurpose format, currently used mostly for DivX and DivX4 | |
| 71 videos. Has many known drawbacks, and inabilities (for example in streaming). | |
| 72 Has support for one video stream, and 99 audio streams. Can be as big as | |
| 73 2Gb. There exists an extension for it to be bigger, called <B>OpenDMS</B>. | |
| 2761 | 74 M$ currently strongly discourages its use and propagates ASF/WMV. Not if |
| 2745 | 75 anybody cares.<BR> |
| 76 <B>NOTE</B> : DV cameras can create two types of AVI format, one is the usual and | |
| 77 playable, the other is neither.</P> | |
| 78 | |
| 2865 | 79 <P>There are two kinds of AVI files: |
| 80 <UL> | |
| 81 <LI><B>Interleaved</B> : audio and video content is interleaved. This is the | |
| 82 standard usage. Recommended and mostly used. Some tools create interleaved | |
| 83 AVIs with bad sync. <B>MPlayer</B> detects these as interleaved, and this | |
| 84 climaxes in loss of A/V sync, probably at seeking. These files should be | |
| 85 played as non-interleaved (with the <CODE>-ni</CODE> option).</LI> | |
| 86 <LI><B>Non-interleaved</B> : bad. First come the whole video stream, then the whole | |
| 87 audio stream, thus needs a lot of seeking. It's very bad when playing from | |
| 88 network or CDROM.</LI> | |
| 89 </UL> | |
| 90 </P> | |
| 91 | |
| 92 <P>MPlayer supports 2 kind of timing for AVI files: | |
| 93 <UL> | |
| 94 <LI><B>bps-based</B> : it is based on bitrate/samplerate of video/audio stream. This | |
| 95 method is used by most players, including avifile and windows media player. | |
| 96 Files with broken headers, and files created with VBR audio but not | |
| 97 VBR-compliant encoder will result in A/V desync with this method (mostly at | |
| 98 seeking).</LI> | |
| 99 <LI><B>interleaving-based</B> : it doesn't use bitrate value of the header, instead | |
| 100 it uses the relative position of interleaved audio and video chunks. Makes | |
| 101 some badly encoded file with VBR audio playable.</LI> | |
| 102 </UL> | |
| 103 </P> | |
| 104 | |
| 105 <P>Any audio and video codec is allowed, but note that VBR audio isn't well | |
| 106 supported by most of the players. The file format makes it possible to use VBR | |
| 107 audio, but most players expect CBR audio, thus they fail with VBR. VBR is | |
| 108 unusual, and Microsoft's AVI specs only describe CBR audio. I also note, that | |
| 3027 | 109 most AVI encoders/multiplexers create bad files if using VBR audio. Only 2 |
| 2865 | 110 exception (known by me): NaNDub and <A HREF="encoding.html">MEncoder</A>.</P> |
| 111 | |
| 2745 | 112 |
| 113 <P><B><A NAME=2.1.1.3>2.1.1.3. ASF/WMV files</A></B></P> | |
| 114 | |
| 2865 | 115 <P>ASF (active streaming format) comes from Microsoft. They developed two |
| 116 variants of ASF, v1.0 and v2.0. v1.0 is used by their media tools (windows | |
| 117 media player and windows media encoder) and is very secret. v2.0 is published | |
| 118 and patented :). Of course they differ, there is no compatibility at all (it's | |
| 119 just another legal game). <B>MPlayer</B> supports only v1.0, as nobody has ever seen | |
| 120 v2.0 files :) . Note, that .ASF files nowdays come with the extension .WMA or | |
| 121 .WMV.</P> | |
| 2745 | 122 |
| 123 | |
| 2865 | 124 <P><B><A NAME=2.1.1.4>2.1.1.4. QuickTime/MOV files</A></B></P> |
| 125 | |
| 126 <P>These are from Macintosh. Usually have extensions of .QT or .MOV . Note | |
| 127 that since the MPEG4 Group chose QuickTime as the recommended file format | |
| 3027 | 128 for MPEG4, their .MOV files come with .MPG or .MP4 extension (interesting |
| 129 that in these files the video stream is a real .MPG file. With the | |
| 130 <CODE>-dumpvideo</CODE> option you can even extract it.).</P> | |
| 2745 | 131 |
| 2865 | 132 <P><B>Codecs</B>: any codecs allowed, both CBR and VBR. Note: most new mov files use |
| 133 <B>Sorenson</B> video and QDesign Music audio. These formats are completely | |
| 134 secret, and only Apple's quicktime player is able to play these files (on | |
| 135 win/mac only).</P> | |
| 136 | |
| 2745 | 137 |
| 138 <P><B><A NAME=2.1.1.5>2.1.1.5. VIV files</A></B></P> | |
| 139 | |
| 2865 | 140 <P><B>MPlayer</B> happily demuxes VIVO file formats. The format's big |
| 141 disadvantage is that it has no index block, nor fixed packetsize or sync bytes, | |
| 142 and most files lack even keyframes, so forget seeking!</P> | |
| 143 | |
| 144 <P>VIVO/1.0 files' video codec is standard <B>h.263</B> . The VIVO/2.0 files' | |
| 145 video codec is a modified, nonstandard <B>h.263</B> . Audio is the same, | |
| 146 it may be <B>g.723</B> (standard), or <B>Vivo Siren</B> .</P> | |
| 147 | |
| 148 <P>See the <A HREF=codecs.html#2.2.1.4>VIVO video codec</A> | |
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149 and <A HREF=codecs.html#2.2.2.4>VIVO audio codec</A> sections for installation |
| 2855 | 150 instructions.</P> |
| 2745 | 151 |
| 152 | |
| 3806 | 153 <P><B><A NAME=2.1.1.6>2.1.1.6. FLI files</A></B></P> |
| 154 | |
| 155 <P><B>FLI</B> is a very old fileformat used by Autodesk Animator, but it's | |
| 156 a common fileformat for short animations on the Net. <B>MPlayer</B> demuxes | |
| 157 and decodes FLI movies and is even able to seek within them (useful when | |
| 158 looping with the -loop option). FLI files don't have keyframes, so picture | |
| 159 will be messy for a short time after seeking.</P> | |
| 160 | |
| 161 | |
| 162 <P><B><A NAME=2.1.1.7>2.1.1.7. RealMedia (RM) files</A></B></P> | |
| 163 | |
| 5094 | 164 <P>Yes, <B>MPlayer</B> can read (demux) RealMedia (.rm) files. Seeking works |
| 165 (the format supports keyframes). Here are the lists of the supported | |
| 166 <A HREF="codecs.html#2.2.1.8">RealVideo</A> | |
| 3806 | 167 and <A HREF="codecs.html#2.2.2.5">RealAudio</A> codecs. |
| 168 | |
| 169 | |
| 3816 | 170 <P><B><A NAME=2.1.1.8>2.1.1.8. NuppelVideo files</A></B></P> |
| 171 | |
| 172 <P><A HREF="http://mars.tuwien.ac.at/~roman/nuppelvideo">NuppelVideo</A> | |
| 173 is a TV grabber tool (AFAIK:). <B>MPlayer</B> can read its <CODE>.nuv</CODE> | |
| 174 files (only NuppelVideo 5.0). Those files can contain uncompressed YV12, | |
| 175 YV12+RTJpeg compressed, YV12 RTJpeg+lzo compressed, and YV12+lzo compressed | |
| 176 frames, <B>MPlayer</B> decodes (and also <B>encodes</B> them with MEncoder to | |
| 177 DivX/etc!) them all. Seeking is under implementation.</P> | |
| 178 | |
| 179 | |
| 3818 | 180 <P><B><A NAME=2.1.1.9>2.1.1.9. yuv4mpeg files</A></B></P> |
| 181 | |
| 182 <P><A HREF="http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net">yuv4mpeg / yuv4mpeg2</A> is | |
| 183 also a fileformat for TV grabbing, or so :) I know only one thing about it: | |
| 184 we support it.</P> | |
| 185 | |
| 186 | |
| 4339 | 187 <P><B><A NAME=2.1.1.10>2.1.1.10. FILM files</A></B></P> |
| 188 | |
| 189 <P>This format is used on old Sega Saturn CD-ROM games.</P> | |
| 190 | |
| 191 | |
| 4503 | 192 <P><B><A NAME=2.1.1.11>2.1.1.11. RoQ files</A></B></P> |
| 193 | |
| 4584 | 194 <P>RoQ files are multimedia files used in some ID games such as Quake III and |
| 195 Return to Castle Wolfenstein.</P> | |
| 4503 | 196 |
| 197 | |
| 2745 | 198 <P><B><A NAME=2.1.2>2.1.2. Audio formats</A></B></P> |
| 199 | |
| 200 <P>Currently <B>MPlayer</B> is still a <B>Movie</B> and not a <B>Media</B> | |
| 201 player, thus the pure audio formats (for example MP3, WAV, audio ASF) are | |
| 202 unplayable. Use <A HREF="http://www.xmms.org">xmms</A>, <A HREF="http://www.mpg123.de">mpg123</A> | |
| 203 or whatever.</P> | |
| 204 | |
| 205 </BODY> | |
| 206 </HTML> |