Libav is an abandoned

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, n ...

project, forked from

FFmpeg FFmpeg is a free and open-source software project consisting of a suite of libraries and programs for handling video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. At its core is the command-line ffmpeg tool itself, designed for processing of vid ...

in 2011, that contains

libraries A library is a collection of Document, materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or electronic media, digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a ...

and

programs Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program management, the process of managing several related projects * Time management * Program, a part of planning Arts and entertainment Audio * Progra ...

for handling

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradit ...

data.

History

Fork from FFmpeg

The Libav project was a fork of the

project. It was announced on March 13, 2011 by a group of FFmpeg developers. The event was related to an issue in project management and different goals: FFmpeg supporters wanted to keep development velocity in favour of more features, while Libav supporters and developers wanted to improve the state of the code and take the time to design better APIs. The maintainer of the FFmpeg packages for

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...

and

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...

, being one of the group of developers who forked FFmpeg, switched the packages to this fork in 2011. Hence, most software on these systems that depended on FFmpeg automatically switched to Libav. On July 8, 2015, Debian announced it would return to FFmpeg for various, technical reasons. Several arguments justified this step. Firstly, FFmpeg had a better record of responding to vulnerabilities than Libav. Secondly, Mateusz "j00ru" Jurczyk, a security-oriented developer at Google, argued that all issues he found in FFmpeg were fixed in a timely manner, while Libav was still affected by various bugs. Finally, FFmpeg supported a far wider variety of codecs and containers than Libav. Libav is an abandoned software project, with Libav developers either returning to FFmpeg, moving to other multimedia projects like the AV1 video codec, or leaving the multimedia field entirely.

Confusion

At the beginning of this fork, Libav and FFmpeg separately developed their own versions of the ffmpeg command. Libav then renamed their ffmpeg to avconv to distance themselves from the FFmpeg project. During the transition period, when a Libav user typed ffmpeg, there was a message telling the user that the ffmpeg command was deprecated and avconv has to be used instead. This confused some users into thinking that FFmpeg (the project) was dead. This message was removed

upstream Upstream may refer to: * Upstream (bioprocess) * ''Upstream'' (film), a 1927 film by John Ford * Upstream (networking) * ''Upstream'' (newspaper), a newspaper covering the oil and gas industry * Upstream (petroleum industry) * Upstream (software ...

when ffmpeg was finally removed from the Libav sources. In June 2012, on Ubuntu 12.04, the message was re-worded, but that new "deprecated" message caused even more user confusion. Starting with Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid", FFmpeg's ffmpeg is back in the repositories again. To further complicate matters, Libav chose a name that was used by FFmpeg to refer to its libraries (libavcodec, libavformat, etc.). For example, the libav-user mailing list, for questions and discussions about using the FFmpeg libraries, is unrelated to the Libav project.

Software using Libav instead of FFmpeg

Debian followed Libav when it was announced, and announced it would return to FFmpeg for Debian Stretch (9.0). MPlayer2, a defunct fork of

MPlayer MPlayer is a free and open-source media player software application. It is available for Linux, OS X and Microsoft Windows. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS, MorphOS and AROS Research Operating System are also available. A port for DOS using ...

, used Libav exclusively, but could be used with

GStreamer GStreamer is a pipeline-based multimedia framework that links together a wide variety of media processing systems to complete complex workflows. For instance, GStreamer can be used to build a system that reads files in one format, processes the ...

with its public API. The MPV media player no longer supports Libav due to missing API changes.

Legal aspects

Codecs

Libav contains more than 100 codecs. Many codecs that compress information have been claimed by patent holders. Such claims may be enforceable in countries like the United States which have implemented

software patent A software patent is a patent on a piece of software, such as a computer program, libraries, user interface, or algorithm. Background A patent is a set of exclusionary rights granted by a state to a patent holder for a limited period of time ...

s, but are considered unenforceable or void in countries that have not implemented software patents.

Logo

The Libav logo uses a zigzag pattern that references how

MPEG The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by ISO and IEC that sets standards for media coding, including compression coding of audio, video, graphics, and genomic data; and transmission and f ...

video codecs handle

entropy encoding In information theory, an entropy coding (or entropy encoding) is any lossless data compression method that attempts to approach the lower bound declared by Shannon's source coding theorem, which states that any lossless data compression method ...

. It was previously the logo of the FFmpeg project until Libav was forked from it. Following the fork, in 2011 one of the Libav developers Måns Rullgård claimed copyright over the logo and requested FFmpeg

cease and desist A cease and desist letter is a document sent to an individual or business to stop alleged illegal activity. The phrase "cease and desist" is a legal doublet, made up of two near-synonyms. The letter may warn that, if the recipient does not disc ...

from using it. FFmpeg subsequently altered their logo into a 3D version.

Google Summer of Code participation

Libav participated in the

Google Summer of Code The Google Summer of Code, often abbreviated to GSoC, is an international annual program in which Google awards stipends to contributors who successfully complete a free and open-source software coding project during the summer. , the program is ...

program in 2011 and 2012. With participation in the Google Summer of Code, Libav has had many new features and improvements developed, including a WMVP/WVP2 decoder, hardware accelerated

H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC), also referred to as H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10, is a video compression standard based on block-oriented, motion-compensated coding. It is by far the most commonly used format for the recording, compression, and distr ...

decoding on Android, and

G.723.1 G.723.1 is an audio codec for voice that compresses voice audio in frames. An algorithmic look-ahead of duration means that total algorithmic delay is . Its official name is ''Dual rate speech coder for multimedia communications transmitting at ...

codec support.

Technical details

Components

Libav primarily consists of libavcodec, which is an audio/video

codec A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or ...

library used by several other projects, ''libavformat'', which is an audio/video

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

muxing and demuxing library, and ''avconv'', which is a multimedia manipulation tool similar to

's ''ffmpeg'' or

Gstreamer GStreamer is a pipeline-based multimedia framework that links together a wide variety of media processing systems to complete complex workflows. For instance, GStreamer can be used to build a system that reads files in one format, processes the ...

''gst-launch-1.0'' command. The

command line A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invoking executables and pro ...

-programs: ;avconv : A video and audio converter that can also grab from a live audio/video source. ;avserver : A streaming server for both audio and video. ;avplay : A very simple and portable media player using the Libav libraries and the SDL library. ;avprobe : Gathers information from multimedia streams and prints it in human- and machine-readable fashion. The libraries: ;

libavcodec libavcodec is a free and open-source library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data. libavcodec is an integral part of many open-source multimedia applications and frameworks. The popular MPV, xine and VLC media players u ...

: A library containing all the Libav audio/video encoders and decoders. ;libavfilter : The substitute for ''vhook'' which allows the video/audio to be modified or examined between the decoder and the encoder. ;libavformat : A library containing

demuxer In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...

s and muxers for audio and video container formats. ;libavresample : A library containing audio resampling routines. ;libavutil : A helper library containing routines common to different parts of Libav. This library includes

Adler-32 Adler-32 is a checksum algorithm written by Mark Adler in 1995, modifying Fletcher's checksum. Compared to a cyclic redundancy check of the same length, it trades reliability for speed (preferring the latter). Adler-32 is more reliable than Fletcher ...

, CRC, MD5,

SHA-1 In cryptography, SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm 1) is a cryptographically broken but still widely used hash function which takes an input and produces a 160- bit (20- byte) hash value known as a message digest – typically rendered as 40 hexa ...

, LZO decompressor, Base64 encoder/decoder,

DES Des is a masculine given name, mostly a short form (hypocorism) of Desmond. People named Des include: People * Des Buckingham, English football manager * Des Corcoran, (1928–2004), Australian politician * Des Dillon (disambiguation), sever ...

encrypter/decrypter,

RC4 In cryptography, RC4 (Rivest Cipher 4, also known as ARC4 or ARCFOUR, meaning Alleged RC4, see below) is a stream cipher. While it is remarkable for its simplicity and speed in software, multiple vulnerabilities have been discovered in RC4, ren ...

encrypter/decrypter and AES encrypter/decrypter. ;libswscale : A library containing video

image scaling In computer graphics and digital imaging, image scaling refers to the resizing of a digital image. In video technology, the magnification of digital material is known as upscaling or resolution enhancement. When scaling a vector graphic image ...

and

colorspace A color space is a specific organization of colors. In combination with color profiling supported by various physical devices, it supports reproducible representations of colorwhether such representation entails an analog or a digital represen ...

/pixelformat conversion routines.

Contained codecs

Numerous

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

implementations of existing

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...

s for the (usually lossy) compression and decompression of audio or video data, called codecs, are available. Please note that an algorithm can be subject to patent law in some jurisdictions. Here are lists of the ones contained in the libav library:

Video codecs

Libav includes video decoders and/or encoders for the following formats: *

Adobe Flash Player Adobe Flash Player (known in Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Google Chrome as Shockwave Flash) is computer software for viewing multimedia contents, executing rich Internet applications, and streaming audio and video content created on ...

related video codecs: Screen video, Screen video 2, Sorenson 3 Codec,

VP6 On2 TrueMotion VP6 is a proprietary lossy video compression format and video codec. It is an incarnation of the TrueMotion video codec, a series of video codecs developed by On2 Technologies. This codec is commonly used by Adobe Flash, Flash Vide ...

and Flash Video (FLV) * Asus v1 * Asus v2 * AVS (decoding only) *

CamStudio CamStudio is an open-source screencasting program for Microsoft Windows released as free software. The software renders videos in an AVI format. It can also convert these AVIs into Flash Video format, embedded in SWF files. CamStudio is wri ...

(decoding only) *

Cinepak Cinepak is a lossy video codec developed by Peter Barrett at SuperMac Technologies, and released in 1991 with the Video Spigot, and then in 1992 as part of Apple Computer's QuickTime video suite. One of the first video compression tools to achiev ...

(decoding only) *

Creative Creative may refer to: *Creativity, phenomenon whereby something new and valuable is created * "Creative" (song), a 2008 song by Leon Jackson * Creative class, a proposed socioeconomic class * Creative destruction, an economic term * Creative dir ...

YUV (CYUV, decoding only) * Dirac (via libschroedinger) *

DNxHD Avid DNxHD ("Digital Nonlinear Extensible High Definition") is a lossy high-definition video post-production codec developed by Avid for multi-generation compositing with reduced storage and bandwidth requirements. It is an implementation of SMPTE ...

Duck Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a form ...

TrueMotion v1 (decoding only) *

TrueMotion v2 (decoding only) * Flash Screen Video * FFV1 * ITU-T video standards: H.261, H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2,

H.263 H.263 is a video compression standard originally designed as a low-bit-rate compressed format for videotelephony. It was standardized by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) in a project ending in 1995/1996. It is a member of the H.26x fam ...

and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC *

* H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (native decoder, encoding through

x264 x264 is a free and open-source software library and a command-line utility developed by VideoLAN for encoding video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video coding format. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Hi ...

) * H.265/HEVC since 2014-02-12 * Huffyuv *

id Software id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...

RoQ Video *

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 ser ...

Indeo (decoding only) * ISO/IEC/ITU-T

JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...

image standards:

, JPEG-LS and

JPEG 2000 JPEG 2000 (JP2) is an image compression standard and coding system. It was developed from 1997 to 2000 by a Joint Photographic Experts Group committee chaired by Touradj Ebrahimi (later the JPEG president), with the intention of superseding th ...

Lagarith Lagarith is an open source lossless video codec written by Ben Greenwood. It is a fork of the code of HuffYUV and offers better compression at the cost of greatly reduced speed on uniprocessor systems. Lagarith was designed and written with a few ...

(decoding only) * LOCO (decoding only) *

DVD Forum The DVD Forum is an international organization composed of hardware, software, media and production companies that use and develop the DVD and formerly HD DVD formats. It was initially known as the DVD Consortium when it was founded in 1995. ...

standards related /

Dolby Dolby Laboratories, Inc. (often shortened to Dolby Labs and known simply as Dolby) is an American company specializing in audio noise reduction, audio encoding/compression, spatial audio, and HDR imaging. Dolby licenses its technologies to ...

audio codecs: MLP (a.k.a. TrueHD) and AC-3 * Mimic (decoding only) *

MJPEG Motion JPEG (M-JPEG or MJPEG) is a video compression format in which each video frame or interlaced field of a digital video sequence is compressed separately as a JPEG image. Originally developed for multimedia PC applications, Motion JPEG ...

MPEG-1 MPEG-1 is a standard for lossy compression of video and audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to about 1.5 Mbit/s (26:1 and 6:1 compression ratios respectively) without excessive quality loss, making ...

MPEG-2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods, ...

/ H.262 * ISO/

IEC The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...

video standards: MPEG-1 Part 2, H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2,

MPEG-4 Part 2 MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-4 Visual (formally ISO/IEC 14496-2) is a video compression format developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standards. It uses block-wise motion compensation and a discrete cosi ...

and H.264/MPEG-4 AVC *

(the format used for example by the popular DivX and

Xvid Xvid (formerly "XviD") is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 video coding standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile (ASP). It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi m ...

codecs) *

On2 On2 Technologies, formerly known as The Duck Corporation, was a small publicly traded company (on the American Stock Exchange), founded in New York City in 1992 and headquartered in Clifton Park, New York, that designed video codec technology. It ...

VP8 (native decoder, encoding through

libvpx libvpx is a free software video codec library from Google and the Alliance for Open Media (AOMedia). It serves as the reference software implementation for the VP8 and VP9 video coding formats, and for AV1 a special fork named libaom that ...

) *

: Duck TrueMotion 1, Duck TrueMotion 2, VP3,

VP5 On2 Technologies, formerly known as The Duck Corporation, was a small publicly traded company (on the American Stock Exchange), founded in New York City in 1992 and headquartered in Clifton Park, New York, that designed video codec technology. It ...

and VP8 *

Apple ProRes Apple ProRes is a high quality, "visually lossless" lossy video compression format developed by Apple Inc. for use in post-production that supports video resolution up to 8K. It is the successor of the Apple Intermediate Codec and was introduced ...

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

QuickDraw A quickdraw (also known as an extender) is a piece of climbing equipment used by rock and ice climbers to allow the climbing rope to run freely through protection such as a bolt anchors or other traditional gear while leading. A quickdr ...

(decoding only) *

QuickTime QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. Created in 1991, the latest Mac version, QuickTime X, is a ...

Audio codecs

Libav includes decoders and encoders for the following formats: *

8SVX 8-Bit Sampled Voice (8SVX) is an audio file format standard developed by Electronic Arts for the Commodore-Amiga computer series. It is a data subtype of the IFF file container format. It typically contains linear pulse-code modulation (LPCM) ...

(decoding only) *

related audio codecs: Adobe SWF ADPCM and Nellymoser Asao * AAC * AC-3 * 3GPP vocoder standards: AMR-NB,

AMR-WB Adaptive Multi-Rate Wideband (AMR-WB) is a patented wideband speech audio coding standard developed based on Adaptive Multi-Rate encoding, using a similar methodology to algebraic code-excited linear prediction (ACELP). AMR-WB provides improved ...

(a.k.a. G.722.2) * ITU-T vocoder standards: G.711 μ-law, G.711 A-law,

G.721 G7 is the Group of Seven, a group of seven industrialized nations, formed by Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. G7 or G.VII may also refer to: Military * G7 howitzer, a light howitzer developed by ...

(a.k.a. G.726 32k), G.722, G.722.2 (a.k.a.

), G.723 (a.k.a. G.726 24k and 40k),

, G.726,

G.729 G.729 is a royalty-free narrow-band vocoder-based audio data compression algorithm using a frame length of 10 milliseconds. It is officially described as ''Coding of speech at 8 kbit/s using code-excited linear prediction'' speech coding (CS-ACEL ...

and G.729D *

Apple Lossless The Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC), also known as Apple Lossless, or Apple Lossless Encoder (ALE), is an audio coding format, and its reference audio codec implementation, developed by Apple Inc. for lossless data compression of digital music ...

ATRAC3 Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC) is a family of proprietary audio compression algorithms developed by Sony. MiniDisc was the first commercial product to incorporate ATRAC in 1992. ATRAC allowed a relatively small disc like MiniDisc to ...

(decoding only) *

Cook Codec {{Unreferenced, date=April 2010 The cook codec is a lossy audio compression codec developed by RealNetworks. It is also known as Cooker, Gecko, RealAudio G2, and RealAudio 8 low bitrate (RA8LBR). Introduced in 1998, the cook codec was the first ...

(decoding only) * DTS (encoder is highly experimental) * EA ADPCM (decoding only) * E-AC-3 *

FLAC FLAC (; Free Lossless Audio Codec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and is also the name of the free software project producing the FLAC tools, the reference softwa ...

(24/32 bit support for decoding only) *

GSM 06.10 Full Rate (FR or GSM-FR or GSM 06.10 or sometimes simply GSM) was the first digital speech coding standard used in the GSM digital mobile phone system. It uses linear predictive coding (LPC). The bit rate of the codec is 13 kbit/s, or 1.625 bits/a ...

(native decoder, encoding through libgsm) *

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a standard developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to describe the protocols for second-generation ( 2G) digital cellular networks used by mobile devices such ...

related voice codecs:

Full Rate Full Rate (FR or GSM-FR or GSM 06.10 or sometimes simply GSM) was the first digital speech coding standard used in the GSM digital mobile phone system. It uses linear predictive coding (LPC). The bit rate of the codec is 13 kbit/s, or 1.625 bits ...

* Intel Music Coder (decoding only) *

Meridian Lossless Packing Meridian Lossless Packing, also known as Packed PCM (PPCM), is a lossless compression technique for PCM audio data developed by Meridian Audio, Ltd. MLP is the standard lossless compression method for DVD-Audio content (often advertised with t ...

Dolby TrueHD Dolby TrueHD is a lossless, multi-channel audio codec developed by Dolby Laboratories for home video, used principally in Blu-ray Disc and compatible hardware. Dolby TrueHD, along with Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3) and Dolby AC-4, is one of the i ...

(decoding only) *

Monkey's Audio Monkey's Audio is an algorithm and file format for lossless audio data compression. Lossless data compression does not discard data during the process of encoding, unlike lossy compression methods such as Advanced Audio Coding, MP3, Vorbis, a ...

(decoding only) * MP2 *

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

(native decoder, encoding through LAME) * ISO/IEC MPEG audio standards:

MP1 MPEG-1 Audio Layer I, commonly abbreviated to MP1, is one of three audio formats included in the MPEG-1 standard. It is a deliberately simplified version of MPEG-1 Audio Layer II (MP2), created for applications where lower compression efficiency ...

, MP2,

, AAC,

HE-AAC High-Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding (HE-AAC) is an audio coding format for lossy data compression of digital audio defined as an MPEG-4 Audio profile in ISO/IEC 14496–3. It is an extension of Low Complexity AAC (AAC-LC) optimized fo ...

and

MPEG-4 ALS MPEG-4 Audio Lossless Coding, also known as MPEG-4 ALS, is an extension to the MPEG-4 Part 3 audio standard to allow lossless audio compression. The extension was finalized in December 2005 and published as ISO/IEC 14496-3:2005/Amd 2:2006 in 200 ...

Nellymoser Asao Codec in Flash Asao (also known as Nellymoser audio codec) is a proprietary single-channel (mono) codec and compression format optimized for low-bitrate transmission of audio, developed by Nellymoser Inc. Technical Details Sound data is grouped into frames o ...

* NTT: TwinVQ *

Opus ''Opus'' (pl. ''opera'') is a Latin word meaning "work". Italian equivalents are ''opera'' (singular) and ''opere'' (pl.). Opus or OPUS may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Opus number, (abbr. Op.) specifying order of (usually) publicatio ...

(via libopus) * QCELP (decoding only) * QDM2 (decoding only) *

related audio codecs:

QDesign QDesign Corporation was a developer of digital audio compression technologies. The company's MP2 and MP3 technologies were used in professional audio and broadcast automation systems as well as multimedia and video production systems. QDesign dev ...

Music Codec 2 and ALAC * RealAudio 1.0 * RealAudio 2.0 (decoding only) * RealPlayer related audio codecs:

RealAudio RealAudio, or also spelled as Real Audio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fi ...

3, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 (a.k.a. ralf for RealAudioLosslessFormat) * RealPlayer related voice codecs:

1, 2 (variant of

G.728 G.728 is an ITU-T standard for speech coding operating at 16 kbit/s. It is officially described as ''Coding of speech at 16 kbit/s using low-delay code excited linear prediction''. Technology used is LD-CELP, low-delay code excited linear pre ...

), 4 and 5 * Shorten (decoding only) * SMPTE audio standards: SMPTE 302M *

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

: ATRAC1 and

Speex Speex is an audio compression codec specifically tuned for the reproduction of human speech and also a free software speech codec that may be used on VoIP applications and podcasts. It is based on the CELP speech coding algorithm.Xiph.OrIntro ...

(via libspeex) *

Truespeech Truespeech is a proprietary audio codec produced by the DSP Group. It is designed for encoding voice data at low bitrates (8.5kbps for 8kHz samples), and to be embedded into DSP chips. Truespeech had been integrated into Windows Media Player in old ...

* TTA (decoding only) * TwinVQ (decoding only) *

Vorbis Vorbis is a free and open-source software project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The project produces an audio coding format and software reference encoder/decoder ( codec) for lossy audio compression. Vorbis is most commonly used in con ...

WavPack WavPack is a free and open-source lossless audio compression format and application implementing the format. It is unique in the way that it supports hybrid audio compression alongside normal compression which is similar to how FLAC works. It ...

(decoding only) *

Windows Media Audio Windows Media Audio (WMA) is a series of audio codecs and their corresponding audio coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs. The ...

1 *

2 * Windows Media Audio 9 Professional (decoding only) * Windows Media Audio Voice (decoding only) *

related audio codecs: WMA1, WMA2, WMA Pro, and WMA Lossless *

related voice codecs: WMA Voice and MS-GSM

Supported file formats

Additionally to the aforementioned codecs, Libav also supports several

file format A file format is a standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary or free. Some file format ...

s (file formats designed to contain audio and/or video data and subtitles, are called "

containers A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The ter ...

", but that is just a special denomination.): * ASF *

AVI Avi is a given name, usually masculine, often a diminutive of Avram, Avraham, etc. It is sometimes feminine and a diminutive of the Hebrew spelling of Abigail. People with the given name include: * Avi (born 1937), Newbery award-winning Americ ...

and also input from AviSynth * BFI * CAF *

FLV Flash Video is a container file format used to deliver digital video content (e.g., TV shows, movies, etc.) over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player version 6 and newer. Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files. There are ...

* GXF, General eXchange Format, SMPTE 360M * IFF * RL2 *

ISO base media file format The ISO base media file format (ISOBMFF) is a container file format that defines a general structure for files that contain time-based multimedia data such as video and audio. It is standardized in ISO/IEC 14496-12, a.k.a. MPEG-4 Part 12, and wa ...

(including

3GP 3GP (3GPP file format) is a multimedia container format defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for 3G UMTS multimedia services. It is used on 3G mobile phones but can also be played on some 2G and 4G phones. 3G2 (3GPP2 ...

and MP4) * Matroska (including

WebM WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML5 video and the HTML5 audio elements. It has a sister project, WebP, for images. The development of the format is sponso ...

) * Maxis XA *

MPEG program stream Program stream (PS or MPEG-PS) is a container format for multiplexing digital audio, video and more. The PS format is specified in MPEG-1 Part 1 (ISO/IEC 11172-1) and MPEG-2 Part 1, Systems (ISO/IEC standard 13818-1/ITU-T H.222.0). The MPEG-2 ...

MPEG transport stream MPEG transport stream (MPEG-TS, MTS) or simply transport stream (TS) is a standard digital container format for transmission and storage of audio, video, and Program and System Information Protocol (PSIP) data. It is used in broadcast syste ...

(including

AVCHD AVCHD (Advanced Video Coding High Definition) is a file-based format for the digital recording and playback of high-definition video. It is H.264 and Dolby AC-3 packaged into the MPEG transport stream, with a set of constraints designed around th ...

) * MXF, Material eXchange Format, SMPTE 377M * MSN Webcam stream * NUT * NUV (

MythTV MythTV is a free and open-source home entertainment application with a simplified "10-foot user interface" design for the living room TV. It turns a computer with the necessary hardware into a network streaming digital video recorder, a digital ...

NuppelVideo file format) * Ogg * OMA * TXD * WTV * WebP

Supported protocols

Support for several

communications protocol A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any kind of variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics and synch ...

s is also contained in Libav. Here is a list: * IETF standards: TCP, UDP, Gopher,

HTTP The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide We ...

, RTP,

RTSP The Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP) is an application-level network protocol designed for multiplexing and packetizing multimedia transport streams (such as interactive media, video and audio) over a suitable transport protocol. RTSP is u ...

and SDP * Apple related protocols:

HTTP Live Streaming HTTP Live Streaming (also known as HLS) is an HTTP-based adaptive bitrate streaming communications protocol developed by Apple Inc. and released in 2009. Support for the protocol is widespread in media players, web browsers, mobile devices, and ...

* RealMedia related protocols: RealMedia RTSP/ RDT * Adobe related protocols: RTMP, RTMPT (via librtmp), RTMPE (via librtmp), RTMPTE (via librtmp) and RTMPS (via librtmp) * Microsoft related protocols: MMS over TCP and MMS over HTTP

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://libav.org C (programming language) libraries Cross-platform free software Free codecs Free computer libraries Free music software Free software programmed in C Free video conversion software Multimedia frameworks Video libraries Software that uses FFmpeg

History

Fork from FFmpeg

Confusion

Software using Libav instead of FFmpeg

Legal aspects

Codecs

Logo

Google Summer of Code participation

Technical details

Components

Contained codecs

Video codecs

Audio codecs

Supported file formats

Supported protocols

See also

References

External links