CodecsVideo codecs
See the codec status table
for the complete, daily generated list. Quite a few codecs are available for
download from our homepage. Grab them from our
codecs page.
The most important ones above all:
MPEG-1 (VCD) and
MPEG-2 (DVD) video
native decoders for DivX ;-), OpenDivX (DivX4),
DivX 5 (Pro), 3ivX, M$ MPEG-4 v1, v2 and other MPEG-4 variants
native decoder for Windows Media Video 7/8
(WMV1/WMV2), and Win32 DLL decoder
for Windows Media Video 9
(WMV3), both used in .wmv
files
native Sorenson 1 (SVQ1) decoder
native Sorenson 3 (SVQ3) decoder
3ivx v1, v2 decoder
Cinepak and Intel Indeo codecs (3.1,3.2,4.1,5.0)
MJPEG, AVID, VCR2, ASV2 and other hardware
formats
VIVO 1.0, 2.0, I263 and other H.263(+) variants
FLI/FLC
RealVideo 1.0 & 2.0 from
libavcodec, and
RealVideo 3.0 & 4.0 codecs using RealPlayer
libraries
native decoder for HuffYUV
Various old simple RLE-like formats
If you have a Win32 codec not listed here which is not supported yet,
please read the codec importing HOWTO
and help us add support for it.
DivX4/DivX5
This section contains information about the DivX4 and DivX5 codecs of
Project Mayo.
Their first available alpha version was OpenDivX 4.0 alpha 47 and 48.
Support for this was included in MPlayer in the
past, and built by default. We also used its postprocessing code to
optionally enhance visual quality of MPEG-1/2 movies. Now we use our own,
for all file types.
The new generation of this codec is called DivX4 and can even decode
movies made with the infamous DivX codec! In addition it is much faster
than the native Win32 DivX DLLs but slower than
libavcodec.
Hence its usage as a decoder is
discouraged. However, it is useful for
encoding. One disadvantage of this codec is that it is not available under an
Open Source license.
DivX4 works in two modes:
Uses the codec in OpenDivX fashion. In this case it produces YV12 images
in its own buffer, and MPlayer does colorspace
conversion via libvo. (Fast, recommended!)
Uses the colorspace conversion of the codec. In this mode you can use
YUY2/UYVY, too. (SLOW)
The method is usually faster, due to the fact
that it transfers image data in YV12 (planar YUV 4:2:0) format, thus
requiring much less bandwidth on the bus. For packed YUV modes (YUY2, UYVY)
use the method. For RGB modes the speed is the
same, differing at best according to your current color depth.
If your driver supports direct rendering, then may be faster, or even the fastest solution.
The DivX4/5 binary codec library can be downloaded from
avifile or
divx.com
Unpack it, run ./install.sh as root and do not forget adding
/usr/local/lib to your
/etc/ld.so.conf and running ldconfig.
Get the CVS version of the OLD OpenDivX core library like this:
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.projectmayo.com:/cvsroot logincvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.projectmayo.com:/cvsroot co divxcore
This core library is split into a decore and encore library that have to be
compiled separately. For the decore Library, simply type
cd divxcore/decore/build/linux
make
cp libdivxdecore.so /usr/local/lib
ln -s libdivxdecore.so /usr/local/lib/libdivxdecore.so.0
cp ../../src/decore.h /usr/local/include
Alas, for the encore library there is no Linux Makefile available, and the
MMX optimized code only works on Windows. You can still compile it, though,
by using this
Makefile.
cd ../../../encore/build
mkdir linux
cd linux
cp path/Makefile .
make
cp libdivxencore.so /usr/local/lib
ln -s libdivxencore.so /usr/local/lib/libdivxencore.so.0
cp ../../src/encore.h /usr/local/include
MPlayer autodetects DivX4/DivX5 if it is
properly installed, just compile as usual. If it does not detect it, you
did not install or configure it correctly.
FFmpeg/libavcodecFFmpeg contains an
open source codec package, which is capable
of decoding streams with various audio and video codecs. It also offers an
impressing encoding facility and higher speed than the Win32 codecs or the
DivX.com DivX4/5 libraries!
It contains a lot of nice codecs, especially important are the MPEG-4 variants:
DivX3, DivX4, DivX5, Windows Media Video 7/8 (WMV1/WMV2). Also a very interesting one
is the WMA decoder.
The most recent codec deserving credit is the Sorenson 3
(SVQ3) codec. This is the first, completely opensource implementation. It is even
faster than the original. Be sure to prefer this instead of the binary codec!
For a complete list of supported codecs please visit the FFmpeg homepage.
Supported video
and audio codecs.
If you use an MPlayer release you have
libavcodec
right in the package, just build as usual. If you use
MPlayer from CVS you have to extract
libavcodec from
the FFmpeg CVS tree as FFmpeg releases are very rare. The CVS is mostly stable
and offers the most features. In order to achieve this do:
cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@mplayerhq.hu:/cvsroot/ffmpeg logincvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@mplayerhq.hu:/cvsroot/ffmpeg co -P ffmpeg/libavcodec ffmpeg/libavutil
Move the libavcodec and libavutil
directories from the FFmpeg
sources to the root of the MPlayer CVS tree.
It should look like this:
main/libavcodecmain/libavutil
Symlinking is not enough, you have to
copy/move it!
If you prefer having libavcodec
updated at the same time you update
MPlayer CVS, put the following line into the
main/CVS/Entries file:
D/libavcodec////D/libavutil////
Compile. configure should detect problems before
compilation.
MPlayer from CVS does contain a
libavcodec subdirectory, but it does
not contain the source for
libavcodec!
You must follow the steps above to obtain the source for this library.
With FFmpeg and my Matrox G400, I can view even the highest resolution DivX
movies without dropped frames on my K6-2 500.
XAnim codecs
Be advised that the XAnim binary codecs are packaged with a piece of text
claiming to be a legally binding software license which, besides other
restrictions, forbids the user to use the codecs in conjunction with any
program other than XAnim. However, the XAnim
author has yet to bring legal action against anyone for codec-related issues.
INSTALLATION AND USAGEMPlayer is capable of employing the XAnim codecs
for decoding. Follow the instructions to enable them:
Download the codecs you wish to use from the
XAnim site.
The 3ivx codec is not there, but at the
3ivx site.
OR download the codecs pack from our
codecs page
Use the option to tell
configure where
to find the XAnim codecs. By default, it looks for them at
/usr/local/lib/codecs,
/usr/local/lib/xanim/mods,
/usr/lib/xanim/mods and
/usr/lib/xanim.
Alternatively you can set the environment variable
XANIM_MOD_DIR to the directory of the XAnim codecs.
Rename/symlink the files, cutting out the architecture stuff, so they
will have filenames like these: vid_cvid.xa,
vid_h263.xa, vid_iv50.xa
XAnim is video codec family xanim, so you may want
to use the option to tell MPlayer
to use them if possible.
Tested codecs include: Indeo 3.2, 4.1, 5.0, CVID, 3ivX,
H.263.VIVO videoMPlayer can play Vivo (1.0 and 2.0) videos. The
most suitable codec for 1.0 files is FFmpeg's H.263 decoder, you can use it
with the option. For 2.0 files, use the
Win32 DLL through the option. If you do not supply
command line options MPlayer selects the best codec
automatically.
MPEG-1/2 video
MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 are decoded by the multiplatform native libmpeg2 library, whose source code is
included in MPlayer. We handle buggy MPEG-1/2
video files by catching Signal 11
(segmentation fault), and quickly
reinitializing the codec, continuing exactly from where the failure
occurred. This recovery technique has no measurable speed penalty.
MS Video1, Cinepak CVID, and other older codecsMPlayer is able to play most of the older codecs
used in AVI and MOV files.
In the past they were decoded with binary Win32 codecs, but now we have
native codecs for most of them using
libavcodec.
RealVideoMPlayer supports decoding all versions of
RealVideo:
RealVideo 1.0, 2.0 (fourcc RV10, RV20) - en/decoding supported by
libavcodec
RealVideo 3.0, 4.0 (fourcc RV30, RV40) - decoding supported by
RealPlayer libraries
Download Real codecs from
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/releases/codecs/
and extract them to the
/usr/local/lib/codecs directory.
If you want to store them in a different location, pass the
option to configure.
RealPlayer libraries currently
only work with Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD and Cygwin on the x86,
Alpha and PowerPC (Linux/Alpha and Linux/PowerPC have been tested) platforms and with Mac OS X.
XviDXviD is a free software MPEG-4 ASP
compliant video codec, which features two pass encoding and full MPEG-4 ASP
support, making it a lot more efficient than the well-known DivX codec.
It yields very good video quality and good performance due to CPU
optimizations for most modern processors.
It began as a forked development of the OpenDivX codec.
This happened when ProjectMayo changed OpenDivX to closed source
DivX4 (now DivX5), and the non-ProjectMayo people working on OpenDivX got angry,
then started XviD. So both projects have the same origin.
Installing XviD
Like most open source software, it is available in two flavors:
official releases
and the CVS version.
The CVS version is usually stable enough to use, as most of the time it
features fixes for bugs that exist in releases.
Here is what to do to make XviD
CVS work with MEncoder (you need at least
autoconf 2.50,
automake and libtool):
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.xvid.org:/xvid logincvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.xvid.org:/xvid co xvidcorecd xvidcore/build/generic./bootstrap.sh./configure
You may have to add some options (examine the output of
./configure --help).
make && make install
If you specified ,
copy ../../src/divx4.h to
/usr/local/include/.
Recompile MPlayer with
Sorenson
Sorenson is a video codec developed by Sorenson Media and licensed to Apple who
distribute it with their QuickTime Player. We are
currently able to decode all version of Sorenson video files with the following
decoders:
Sorenson Video v1 (fourcc SVQ1) - decoding supported
by native codec
(libavcodec)
Sorenson Video v3 (fourcc SVQ3) - decoding supported by
native codec
(libavcodec)
COMPILING MPLAYER WITH QUICKTIME LIBRARIES SUPPORTCurrently only 32-bit Intel platforms are supported.download MPlayer CVSdownload QuickTime DLL pack from
extract QuickTime DLL pack to your Win32 codecs directory
(default: /usr/local/lib/codecs/)
compile MPlayerx264What is x264?x264 is a library for
creating H.264 video streams.
It is not 100% complete, but currently it has at least some kind
of support for most of the H.264 features which impact quality.
There are also many advanced features in the H.264 specification
which have nothing to do with video quality per se; many of these
are not yet implemented in
x264.
Encoder featuresCAVLC/CABACMulti-referencesIntra: all macroblock types (16x16, 8x8, and 4x4 with
all predictions)Inter P: all partitions (from 16x16 down to
4x4)Inter B: partitions from 16x16 down to 8x8
(including SKIP/DIRECT)Ratecontrol: constant quantizer, constant bitrate,
single or multipass ABR, optional VBVScene cut detectionAdaptive B-frame placementB-frames as references / arbitrary frame
order8x8 and 4x4 adaptive spatial transformLossless modeCustom quantization matricesParallel encoding of multiple slicesWhat is H.264?
H.264 is one name for a new digital video codec jointly developed
by the ITU and MPEG.
It can also be correctly referred to by the cumbersome names of
"ISO/IEC 14496-10" or "MPEG-4 Part 10".
More frequently, it is referred to as "MPEG-4 AVC" or just "AVC".
Whatever you call it, H.264 may be worth trying because it can
typically match the quality of MPEG-4 ASP with 5%-30% less
bitrate.
Actual results will depend on both the source material and the
encoder.
The gains from using H.264 do not come for free: Decoding H.264
streams seems to have steep CPU and memory requirements.
For instance, on a 1733 MHz Athlon, a DVD-resolution 1500kbps H.264
video requires around 35% CPU to decode.
By comparison, decoding a DVD-resolution 1500kbps MPEG-4 ASP stream
requires around 10% CPU.
This means that decoding high-definition streams is almost out of
the question for most users.
It also means that even a decent DVD rip may sometimes stutter on
processors slower than 2.0 GHz or so.
At least with x264,
encoding requirements are not much worse than what you are used to
with MPEG-4 ASP.
For instance, on a 1733 MHz Athlon a typical DVD encode would run
at 5-15fps.
This document is not intended to explain the details of H.264,
but if you are interested in a brief overview, you may want to read
The H.264/AVC Advanced Video Coding Standard: Overview and Introduction to the Fidelity Range Extensions.
How can I play H.264 videos with MPlayer?MPlayer uses
libavcodec's H.264
decoder.
libavcodec has had at
least minimally usable H.264 decoding since around July 2004,
however major changes and improvements have been implemented since
that time, both in terms of more functionalities supported and in
terms of improved CPU usage.
Just to be certain, it is always a good idea to use a recent CVS
checkout.
If you want a quick and easy way to know whether there have been
recent changes to libavcodec's
H.264 decoding, you might keep an eye on
FFmpeg CVS repository's web interface.
How can I encode videos using MEncoder and x264?
If you have the subversion client installed, the latest x264
sources can be gotten with this command:
svn co svn://svn.videolan.org/x264/trunk x264MPlayer sources are updated whenever
an x264 API change
occurs, so it is always suggested to use CVS
MPlayer as well.
Perhaps this situation will change when and if an
x264 "release" occurs.
Meanwhile, x264 should
be considered very unstable, in the sense that its programming
interface is subject to change.
x264 is built and
installed in the standard way:
./configure && make && sudo make install
This installs libx264.a in /usr/local/lib and x264.h is placed in
/usr/local/include.
With the x264 library
and header placed in the standard locations, building
MPlayer with
x264 support is easy.
Just run the standard:
./configure && make && sudo make install
The configure script will autodetect that you have satisfied the
requirements for x264.
Audio codecsThe most important audio codecs above all:
MPEG layer 1/2/3 (MP1/2/3) audio (native
code, with MMX/SSE/3DNow! optimization)
Windows Media Audio 7 and 8 (AKA WMAv1 and WMAv2) (native code, with
libavcodec)
Windows Media Audio 9 (WMAv3) (using DMO DLL)
AC3 Dolby audio (native code, with
MMX/SSE/3DNow! optimization)
AC3 passing through sound card hardware
AAC
Ogg Vorbis audio codec (native library)
RealAudio: DNET (low bitrate AC3), Cook, Sipro and ATRAC3
QuickTime: Qualcomm and QDesign audio codecs
VIVO audio (g723, Vivo Siren)
Voxware audio (using DirectShow DLL)
alaw and ulaw, various gsm, adpcm and pcm formats and other simple old
audio codecs
Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR) speech codecs
Software AC3 decoding
This is the default decoder used for files with AC3 audio.
The AC3 decoder can create audio output mixes for 2, 4, or 6 speakers.
When configured for 6 speakers, this decoder provides separate output of
all the AC3 channels to the sound driver, allowing for full "surround
sound" experience without the external AC3 decoder required to use the
hwac3 codec.
Use the option to select the number of output
channels. Use for a stereo downmix. For a 4
channel downmix (Left Front, Right Front, Left Surround and Right Surround
outputs), use . In this case, any center
channel will be mixed equally to the front channels. will output all the AC3 channels as they are encoded - in the
order Left, Right, Left Surround, Right Surround, Center and LFE.
The default number of output channels is 2.
To use more than 2 output channels, you will need to use OSS, and have a
sound card that supports the appropriate number of output channels via the
SNDCTL_DSP_CHANNELS ioctl. An example of a suitable driver is emu10k1
(used by Soundblaster Live! cards) from August 2001 or newer (ALSA CVS is
also supposed to work).
Hardware AC3 decoding
You need an AC3 capable sound card, with digital out (S/PDIF). The card's
driver must properly support the AFMT_AC3 format (C-Media does). Connect
your AC3 decoder to the S/PDIF output, and use the option. It is experimental but known to work with C-Media
cards and Soundblaster Live! + ALSA (but not OSS) drivers and DXR3/Hollywood+
MPEG decoder cards.
libmad supportlibmad is a multiplatform,
integer (internally 24bit PCM) only
MPEG audio decoding library. It does not handle broken files well, and it
sometimes has problems with seeking, but it may perform better on FPU-less
(such as ARM) platform than mp3lib.
To enable support, compile with the configure
option.
Hardware MPEG audio codec
This codec (selected by -ac hwmpa) passes through MPEG audio packets
to hardware decoders, such as the ones found in full-featured DVB cards
and DXR2 adapters.
Don't use it in combination with any other audio output device
(such as OSS and ALSA) that isn't able to decode it (you will hear
only white noise).
VIVO audio
The audio codec used in VIVO files depends on whether it is a VIVO/1.0 or
VIVO/2.0 file. VIVO/1.0 files have g.723 audio,
and VIVO/2.0 files have Vivo Siren audio. Both are
supported.
RealAudioMPlayer supports decoding nearly all versions of
RealAudio:
RealAudio DNET - decoding supported by
liba52
RealAudio Cook/Sipro/ATRAC3 - decoding supported by
RealPlayer libraries
Instructions on how to install the RealPlayer libraries are in the
RealVideo section.
QDesign codecs
QDesign audio streams (fourcc:QDMC, QDM2) are found
in MOV/QT files. Both versions of this codec can be decoded with QuickTime
libraries. For installation instructions please see the
Sorenson video codec section.
Qualcomm codecs
Qualcomm audio streams (fourcc:Qclp) is found
in MOV/QT files. It can be decoded with QuickTime
libraries. For installation instructions please see the
Sorenson video codec section.
AAC codec
AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) is an audio codec sometimes found in MOV and MP4
files. An open source decoder called FAAD is available from
.
MPlayer includes a CVS snapshot of libfaad 2.1
beta, so you do not need to get it separately.
If you use gcc 3.2 which fails to compile our internal FAAD or want to use
the external library for some other reason, download the library from the
download page
and pass to configure.
You do not need all of faad2 to decode AAC files, libfaad is enough. Build
it like this:
cd faad2/
sh bootstrap
./configure
cd libfaad
make
make install
Binaries are not available from audiocoding.com, but you can (apt-)get Debian
packages from Christian Marillat's homepage,
Mandrake/Mandriva RPMs from the P.L.F and RedHat RPMs
from Grey Sector.
AMR codecs
Adaptive Multi-Rate speech codec is used in third generation (3G) mobile
phones.
Reference implementation is available from
The 3rd Generation Partnership Project
(free for private use).
To enable support, download the sources for
AMR-NB
and
AMR-WB
codecs, put them in the directory where you unpacked the
MPlayer source and run the following commands:
unzip 26104-610.zip
unzip 26104-610_ANSI_C_source_code.zip
mv c-code libavcodec/amr_float
unzip 26204-600.zip
unzip 26204-600_ANSI-C_source_code.zip
mv c-code libavcodec/amrwb_float
After that, follow the usual MPlayer
build procedure.
Win32 codecs importing HOWTOVFW codecs
VFW (Video for Windows) is the old Video API for Windows. Its codecs have
the .DLL or (rarely) .DRV
extension. If MPlayer fails at playing your AVI
with this kind of message:
UNKNOWN video codec: HFYU (0x55594648)
It means your AVI is encoded with a codec which has the HFYU fourcc (HFYU =
HuffYUV codec, DIV3 = DivX Low Motion, etc.). Now that you know this, you
have to find out which DLL Windows loads in order to play this file. In our
case, the system.ini contains this information in a
line that reads:
VIDC.HFYU=huffyuv.dll
So you need the huffyuv.dll file. Note that the audio
codecs are specified by the MSACM prefix:
msacm.l3acm=L3codeca.acm
This is the MP3 codec. Now that you have all the necessary information
(fourcc, codec file, sample AVI), submit your codec support request by
mail, and upload these files to the FTP site:
ftp://ftp.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/incoming/[codecname]/
On Windows NT/2000/XP search for this info in the registry,
e.g. search for "VIDC.HFYU". To find out how to do this, look at
the old DirectShow method below.
DirectShow codecs
DirectShow is the newer Video API, which is even worse than its predecessor.
Things are harder with DirectShow, since
system.ini does not contain the needed information,
instead it is stored in the registry and
we need the GUID of the codec.
New Method:
Using Microsoft GraphEdit (fast)
Get GraphEdit from either DirectX SDK or
doom9
Start graphedit.exe.
From the menu select Graph -> Insert Filters.
Expand item DirectShow Filters
Select the right codec name and expand item.
In the entry DisplayName look at the text in
winged brackets after the backslash and write it down (five dash-delimited
blocks, the GUID).
The codec binary is the file specified in the Filename
entry.
If there is no Filename and
DisplayName contains something like
device:dmo, then it is a DMO-Codec.
Old Method:
Take a deep breath and start searching the registry...
Start regedit.
Press Ctrl+F, disable the first two
checkboxes, and enable the third. Type in the fourcc of the codec (e.g.
TM20).
You should see a field which contains the path and the filename (e.g.
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\TM20DEC.AX).
Now that you have the file, we need the GUID. Try searching again, but
now search for the codec's name, not the fourcc. Its name can be acquired
when Media Player is playing the file, by checking
File -> Properties ->
Advanced.
If not, you are out of luck. Try guessing (e.g. search for TrueMotion).
If the GUID is found you should see a FriendlyName
and a CLSID field. Write down the 16 byte CLSID,
this is the GUID we need.
If searching fails, try enabling all the checkboxes. You may have
false hits, but you may get lucky...
Now that you have all the necessary information (fourcc, GUID, codec file,
sample AVI), submit your codec support request by mail, and upload these files
to the FTP site:
ftp://ftp.mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/incoming/[codecname]/
If you want to add a codec yourself, read
DOCS/tech/codecs.conf.txt.