The following is a list of compression formats and related

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 ...

Audio compression formats

Non-compression

* Linear pulse-code modulation (LPCM, generally only described as

PCM Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio applications. In a PCM stream, the am ...

) is the format for uncompressed audio in media files and it is also the standard for CD-DA; note that in computers, LPCM is usually stored in container formats such as WAV,

AIFF Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) is an audio file format standard used for storing sound data for personal computers and other electronic audio devices. The format was developed by Apple Inc. in 1988 based on Electronic Arts' Interchange ...

, or AU, or as raw audio format, although not technically necessary. **

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 ...

Pulse-density modulation Pulse-density modulation, or PDM, is a form of modulation used to represent an analog signal with a binary signal. In a PDM signal, specific amplitude values are not encoded into codewords of pulses of different weight as they would be in pulse- ...

(PDM) ** Direct Stream Digital (DSD) is standard for

Super Audio CD Super Audio CD (SACD) is an optical disc format for audio storage introduced in 1999. It was developed jointly by Sony and Philips Electronics and intended to be the successor to the Compact Disc (CD) format. The SACD format allows multiple a ...

*** foobar2000 Super Audio CD Decoder (based on MPEG-4 DST reference decoder) *** FFmpeg (based on dsd2pcm) *

Pulse-amplitude modulation Pulse-amplitude modulation (PAM) is a form of signal modulation where the message information is encoded in the amplitude of a series of signal pulses. It is an analog pulse modulation scheme in which the amplitudes of a train of carrier pulse ...

(PAM)

Lossless compression

* Actively used ** Most popular *** Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC) **** libFLAC **** FFmpeg ***

Apple Lossless Audio Codec 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 musi ...

(ALAC) **** Apple QuickTime **** libalac **** FFmpeg ****

Apple Music Apple Music is a music, audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users select music to stream to their device on-demand, or they can listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the Internet radio stations Appl ...

*** Monkey's Audio (APE) **** Monkey's Audio SDK **** FFmpeg (decoder only) *** OptimFROG (OFR) *** Tom's verlustfreier Audiokompressor (TAK) **** TAK SDK **** FFmpeg (decoder only) *** WavPack (WV) **** libwavpack **** FFmpeg *** True Audio (TTA) **** libtta **** FFmpeg *** Windows Media Audio Lossless (WMAL) **** Windows Media Encoder **** FFmpeg (decoder only) ** Other *** DTS-HD Master Audio, also known as DTS++ and DCA XLL **** libdca (decoder only) **** FFmpeg (decoder only) ***

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 ...

Standard for

DVD-Audio DVD-Audio (commonly abbreviated as DVD-A) is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio uses most of the storage on the disc for high-quality audio and is not intended to be a video delivery format. The st ...

in Blu-ray (mathematically based on MLP) **** FFmpeg ***

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 ...

(MLP), also known as Packed PCM (PPCM) Standard for

in DVD **** FFmpeg *** MPEG-4 Audio Lossless Coding (MPEG-4 ALS) **** SSC, DST, ALS and SLS reference software (ISO/IEC 14496-5:2001/Amd.10:2007) **** FFmpeg (decoding only) *** MPEG-4

Scalable Lossless Coding MPEG-4 SLS, or MPEG-4 Scalable to Lossless as per ISO/IEC 14496-3:2005/Amd 3:2006 (Scalable Lossless Coding), is an extension to the MPEG-4 Part 3 (MPEG-4 Audio) standard to allow lossless audio compression scalable to lossy MPEG-4 General Audio ...

(MPEG-4 SLS) Parts of it are used in HD-AAC. **** SSC, DST, ALS and SLS reference software (ISO/IEC 14496-5:2001/Amd.10:2007) ***

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 ...

Lossless **** RealPlayer **** FFmpeg (decoding only) *** BFDLAC (BFD Lossless Audio Compression). Ongoing development. **** FXpansion's BFD3 drum software. (2013-2017) ** Oddball *** ATRAC Advanced Lossless (AAL) Extremely unpopular **** FFmpeg (lossy decoder only) *** Direct Stream Transfer (DST) - Only used for Direct Stream Digital **** SSC, DST, ALS and SLS reference software (ISO/IEC 14496-5:2001/Amd.10:2007) **** FFmpeg (decoder only) ***

Original Sound Quality {{unreferenced, date=March 2010 Original Sound Quality (OSQ) is an audio file format developed in 2002 by '' Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH'' and implemented e.g. in their audio editing software '' Wavelab 4'' (and following releases) for lossl ...

(OSQ) - Only used in

WaveLab WaveLab is a digital audio editor and recording computer software application for Windows and macOS, created by Steinberg. WaveLab was started in 1995 and it is mainly the work of one programmer, Philippe Goutier. Audio can be edited as a sin ...

* Discontinued ** Lossless Audio (LA) – No update for 10+ years ** Shorten (SHN) – Officially discontinued. *** libshn *** FFmpeg (decoding only) ** Lossless Predictive Audio Compression (LPAC) – Predecessor of MPEG-4 ALS **

Lossless Transform Audio Compression Lossless Transform Audio Compression (LTAC) is a compression algorithm developed by Tilman Liebchen, Marcus Purat and Peter Noll at Institute for Telecommunications, Technical University Berlin (TU Berlin), to compress PCM audio in a lossless m ...

(LTAC) – Predecessor of LPAC ** MPEG-1 Audio Layer III HD (

mp3HD MPEG-1 Audio Layer III HD more commonly known and advertised by its abbreviation mp3HD is an audio compression codec developed by Technicolor formerly known as Thomson. It achieves lossless data compression, and is backwards compatible with the M ...

) – Officially discontinued ** RK Audio (RKAU) – Officially discontinued

Bluetooth lossless

Doesn't exist.

Lossy compression

* Discrete cosine transform (DCT) **

Modified discrete cosine transform The modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) is a transform based on the type-IV discrete cosine transform (DCT-IV), with the additional property of being lapped: it is designed to be performed on consecutive blocks of a larger dataset, where ...

(MDCT, used in most of the audio codecs listed below)

General/Speech hybrid

* Unified Speech and Audio Coding (USAC, MPEG-D Part 3, ISO/IEC 23003-3) ** exhale (encoder only; open source) * IETF standards: **

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 ...

(RFC 6716) based on SILK vocoder and CELT codec *** libopus *** FFmpeg (decoding and experimental encoding) * IETF

Internet Draft An Internet Draft (I-D) is a document published by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) containing preliminary technical specifications, results of networking-related research, or other technical information. Often, Internet Drafts are int ...

** IPMR Speech Codec - used in Spirit DSP's TeamSpirit Voice&Video Engine

Neural audio codecs

* Lyra (codec) - used in

Google Duo Google Duo is a proprietary voice over IP (VoIP) and videotelephony service developed by Google, available for Android, iOS and web browsers. It lets users make and receive one-to-one and group audio and video calls with other Duo users in ...

Lyra Lyra (; Latin for lyre, from Greek ''λύρα'') is a small constellation. It is one of the 48 listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy, and is one of the modern 88 constellations recognized by the International Astronomical Union. Lyra ...

V2 - based on SoundStream neural codec *

Satin A satin weave is a type of fabric weave that produces a characteristically glossy, smooth or lustrous material, typically with a glossy top surface and a dull back. It is one of three fundamental types of textile weaves alongside plain weave ...

(used by Microsoft Teams) *

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

EnCodec

General

Adaptive differential pulse-code modulation Adaptive differential pulse-code modulation (ADPCM) is a variant of differential pulse-code modulation (DPCM) that varies the size of the quantization step, to allow further reduction of the required data bandwidth for a given signal-to-noise rati ...

(ADPCM, also called adaptive delta pulse-code modulation) * Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC, used in

MiniDisc MiniDisc (MD) is an erasable magneto-optical disc-based data storage format offering a capacity of 60, 74, and later, 80 minutes of digitized audio. Sony announced the MiniDisc in September 1992 and released it in November of that year fo ...

devices) ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * ATSC/ETSI standards: **

Dolby Digital Dolby Digital, originally synonymous with Dolby AC-3, is the name for what has now become a family of audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. Formerly named Dolby Stereo Digital until 1995, the audio compression is loss ...

(AC3, ATSC A/52, ETSI TS 102 366) *** FFmpeg *** liba52 (decoder only) ** Dolby Digital Plus (E-AC-3, ATSC A/52:2012 Annex E, ETSI TS 102 366 Annex E) *** FFmpeg **

DTS Coherent Acoustics DTS, Inc. (originally Digital Theater Systems) is an American company that makes multichannel audio technologies for film and video. Based in Calabasas, California, the company introduced its DTS technology in 1993 as a competitor to Dolby Labor ...

(DTS, Digital Theatre System Coherent Acoustics, ETSI TS 102 114) *** FFmpeg *** libdca (decoder only) **

Dolby AC-4 Dolby AC-4 is an audio compression technology developed by Dolby Laboratories. Dolby AC-4 bitstreams can contain audio channels and/or audio objects. Dolby AC-4 has been adopted by the DVB project and standardized by the ETSI. History Its develop ...

(ETSI TS 103 190) *

Impala The impala or rooibok (''Aepyceros melampus'') is a medium-sized antelope found in eastern and southern Africa. The only extant member of the genus ''Aepyceros'' and tribe Aepycerotini, it was first described to European audiences by Ger ...

Blackbird audio codec *

ITU The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Union ...

standards: **

G.719 G.719 is an ITU-T standard audio coding format providing high quality, moderate bit rate (32 to 128 kbit/s) wideband (20 Hz - 20 kHz audio bandwidth, 48 kHz audio sample rate) audio coding at low computational load. It was produced th ...

** G.722 *** FFmpeg ** G.722.1 (subset of Siren7) and G.722.1 Annex C (subset of Siren14) *** libg722_1 *** libsiren (part of libmsn and msn-pecan) ** G.722.2 *** 3GPP TS 26.173 AMR-WB speech Codec (C-source code) reference implementation3GPP (2008-12-11
3GPP TS 26.173 - AMR-WB speech Codec; version 8.0.0 Release 8
retrieved 2009-09-09 *** opencore-amr (decoder) *** VisualOn AMR-WB encoder *** FFmpeg (decoding only) ** EVS * MPEG-1 Audio and MPEG-2 Audio ** layer I (

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 ...

) (

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, ...

and non-ISO MPEG-2.5) *** FFmpeg (decoder only) ** layer II ( MP2) (

and non-ISO MPEG-2.5) *** FFmpeg *** tooLame (encoding only) *** twoLame (encoding only) ** layer III (

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 ...

) (

and non-ISO MPEG-2.5) *** FFmpeg (decoding only) *** LAME (encoding only) **

Advanced Audio Coding Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is an audio coding standard for lossy digital audio compression. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves higher sound quality than MP3 encoders at the same bit rate. AAC has been stan ...

(AAC) (

MPEG-2 Part 7 Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is an audio coding standard for lossy digital audio compression. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves higher sound quality than MP3 encoders at the same bit rate. AAC has been standar ...

) ***

FAAC FAAC or Freeware Advanced Audio Coder is a software project which includes the AAC encoder FAAC and decoder FAAD2. It supports MPEG-2 AAC as well as MPEG-4 AAC. It supports several MPEG-4 Audio object types (LC, Main, LTP for encoding and SBR, ...

(encoder) and FAAD (decoder) ***

***

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mu ...

***

Nero AAC Codec __NOTOC__ Nero AAC Codec is a set of software tools for encoding and decoding Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) format audio, and editing MPEG-4 metadata. It was developed and distributed by Nero AG, and is available at no cost for Windows and Linux fo ...

*** VisualOn AAC Encoder (a.k.a. libvo_aacenc) *** Fraunhofer FDK AAC *** libaacplus * MPEG-4 Audio **

(AAC,

MPEG-4 Part 3 MPEG-4 Part 3 or MPEG-4 Audio (formally ISO/IEC 14496-3) is the third part of the ISO/IEC MPEG-4 international standard developed by Moving Picture Experts Group. It specifies audio coding methods. The first version of ISO/IEC 14496-3 was publish ...

subpart 4),

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 AAC-LD ***

FAAD2 FAAC or Freeware Advanced Audio Coder is a software project which includes the AAC encoder FAAC and decoder FAAD2. It supports MPEG-2 AAC as well as MPEG-4 AAC. It supports several MPEG-4 Audio object types (LC, Main, LTP for encoding and SBR, ...

***

*** MPEG-4 AAC reference software (ISO/IEC 14496-5:2001) ** Harmonic and Individual Lines and Noise (HILN,

MPEG-4 MPEG-4 is a group of international standards for the compression of digital audio and visual data, multimedia systems, and file storage formats. It was originally introduced in late 1998 as a group of audio and video coding formats and related t ...

Parametric Audio Coding) *** MPEG-4 reference software (ISO/IEC 14496-5:2001) ** TwinVQ *** MPEG-4 reference software (ISO/IEC 14496-5:2001) *** FFmpeg (decoding only) ** BSAC (Bit-Sliced Arithmetic Coding) *** MPEG-4 reference software (ISO/IEC 14496-5:2001) *

MPEG-H MPEG-H is a group of international standards under development by the ISO/ IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It has various "parts" – each of which can be considered a separate standard. These include a media transport protocol standard, ...

MPEG-H 3D Audio MPEG-H 3D Audio, specified as ISO/IEC 23008-3 (MPEG-H Part 3), is an audio coding standard developed by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) to support coding audio as audio channels, audio objects, or higher order ambisonics (HOA). MP ...

Musepack Musepack or MPC is an open source lossy audio codec, specifically optimized for transparent compression of stereo audio at bitrates of 160–180 (manual set allows bitrates up to 320) kbit/s. It was formerly known as MPEGplus, MPEG+ or MP+ ...

(a.k.a. MPEGplus) ** Musepack SV8 Tools ** FFmpeg (decoding only) *

NICAM Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex (NICAM) is an early form of lossy compression for digital audio. It was originally developed in the early 1970s for point-to-point links within broadcasting networks.Croll, M.G., Osborne, D.W. and Spi ...

* AT&T

Perceptual Audio Coder Perceptual Audio Coder (PAC) is a lossy audio compression algorithm. It is used by Sirius Satellite Radio for their digital audio radio service. Development The original version of PAC developed by James Johnston and Anibal Ferreira at AT&T's Bel ...

* Precision Adaptive Subband Coding (PASC; a variant of MP1; used in

Digital Compact Cassette The Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) is a magnetic tape sound recording format introduced by Philips and Matsushita Electric in late and marketed as the successor to the standard analog Compact Cassette. It was also a direct competitor to Sony ...

) *

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 ...

(purchased by DTS) ** QDesign Music Codec used in Apple QuickTime *** FFmpeg (decoding only) * PictureTel (purchased by

Polycom Poly, formerly Polycom, a part of HP Inc., is an American multinational corporation that develops video, voice and content collaboration and communication technology. Polycom was co-founded in 1990 by Brian L Hinman and Jeffrey Rodman. In 2018 ...

) **

Siren Siren or sirens may refer to: Common meanings * Siren (alarm), a loud acoustic alarm used to alert people to emergencies * Siren (mythology), an enchanting but dangerous monster in Greek mythology Places * Siren (town), Wisconsin * Siren, Wiscon ...

7 *** libg722_1 *** libsiren (part of libmsn and msn-pecan) *** FFmpeg (decoder only) ** Siren 14 *** libg722_1 *** vgmstream (decoder only) ** Siren 22 * NTT TwinVQ ** FFmpeg (decoder only) ** NTT TwinVQ Encoder, NTT TwinVQ Player * Voxware MetaSound (a variant of NTT TwinVQ) ** Windows Media Player (voxmsdec.ax) ** FFmpeg (decoder 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 ...

** aoTuV **

libvorbis 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 conjun ...

Tremor A tremor is an involuntary, somewhat rhythmic, muscle contraction and relaxation involving oscillations or twitching movements of one or more body parts. It is the most common of all involuntary movements and can affect the hands, arms, eyes, f ...

(decoder 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 ...

(WMA) **

Windows Media Encoder Windows Media Encoder (WME) is a discontinued, freeware media encoder developed by Microsoft which enables content developers to convert or capture both live and prerecorded audio, video, and computer screen images to Windows Media formats for ...

** FFmpeg

= AES3

= * SMPTE 302M ** FFmpeg (decoder only) *

Dolby E Dolby E is a lossy audio compression and decoding technology developed by Dolby Laboratories that allows 6 to 8 channels of audio to be compressed into an AES3 digital audio stream that can be stored as a standard stereo pair of digital audio t ...

** FFmpeg (decoder only)

=Bluetooth

= *

Bluetooth Special Interest Group The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (Bluetooth SIG) is the standards organization that oversees the development of Bluetooth standards and the licensing of the Bluetooth technologies and trademarks to manufacturers. The SIG is a not-for-profit ...

** Low Complexity Subband Coding (SBC) *** BlueZ's SBC library (libsbc) *** Fluoride Bluetooth stack (successor of BlueDroid) *** FFmpeg ** CVSD 8 kHz - used in Hands-Free Profile (HFP) ** modified SBC (mSBC) - used in Hands-Free Profile (HFP) *** BlueZ's SBC library (libsbc) *** Fluoride Bluetooth stack *** FFmpeg ** SBC XQ ***

PulseAudio PulseAudio is a network-capable sound server program distributed via the freedesktop.org project. It runs mainly on Linux, various BSD distributions such as FreeBSD and OpenBSD, macOS, as well as Illumos distributions and the Solaris operat ...

's bluetooth stack (encoder only) *** PipeWire's bluetooth stack (encoder only) ** LC3 (Low Complexity Communication Codec) *

ETSI The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is an independent, not-for-profit, standardization organization in the field of information and communications. ETSI supports the development and testing of global technical standard ...

** LC3plus (ETSI TS 103 634) * Qualcomm Technologies International (formerly CSR) ** aptX (a.k.a. apt-X) *** Qualcomm libaptXIntegration of the aptX and aptX-HD codecs for A2DP source

Android Open Source Project Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android is developed by a consortium of deve ...

, January 4, 2017 *** FFmpeg ** aptX HD *** Qualcomm libaptXHD *** FFmpeg **

aptX Low Latency aptX (''apt'' stands for ''audio processing technology'') is a family of proprietary audio codec compression algorithms owned by Qualcomm, with a heavy emphasis on wireless audio applications. History The original aptX algorithm was develope ...

** aptX Adaptive ** FastStream - a variant of SBC codec for bi-directional audio transmission *

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 ...

** LDAC *** libldac (encoder only) - used in

Android Oreo Android Oreo ( codenamed Android O during development) is the eighth major release and the 15th version of the Android mobile operating system. It was first released as an alpha quality developer preview in March 2017 and released to the pub ...

*** libldacdec (decoder only) * HWA Alliance/Savitech ** LHDC *** HWA encoder/decoder ** LLAC ***HWA encoder/decoder * HiBy ** Ultra Audio Transmission (UAT) * Samsung ** Samsung HD/UHQ-BT codec ** Samsung Scalable codec

=Digital radio

= * Hybrid Digital Coding - used in

HD Radio HD Radio (HDR) is a trademark for an in-band on-channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcast technology. It generally simulcasts an existing analog radio station in digital format with less noise and with additional text information. HD Radio is used ...

(a.k.a. NRSC-5) ** NRSC-5 receiver for rtl-sdr (decoder only)

Voice

(low bit rate, optimized for speech) *

Linear predictive coding Linear predictive coding (LPC) is a method used mostly in audio signal processing and speech processing for representing the spectral envelope of a digital signal of speech in compressed form, using the information of a linear predictive mod ...

(LPC, used in most of the speech codecs listed below) ** Code-excited linear prediction (CELP) ***

Algebraic code-excited linear prediction Algebraic code-excited linear prediction (ACELP) is a speech coding algorithm in which a limited set of pulses is distributed as excitation to a linear prediction filter. It is a linear predictive coding (LPC) algorithm that is based on the cod ...

(ACELP) * Xiph.Org Foundation **

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 ...

, patent free *** libspeex *** FFmpeg (decoder only) * Dialogic ADPCM (VOX) ** FFmpeg (decoder only) *

standards: ** G.711 (

a-law An A-law algorithm is a standard companding algorithm, used in European 8-bit PCM digital communications systems to optimize, i.e. modify, the dynamic range of an analog signal for digitizing. It is one of two versions of the G.711 standar ...

and μ-law

companding In telecommunication and signal processing, companding (occasionally called compansion) is a method of mitigating the detrimental effects of a channel with limited dynamic range. The name is a portmanteau of the words compressing and expandi ...

; 64kbit/s), also known as PCM of voice frequencies ***

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, t ...

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired ...

implementation *** FFmpeg (libavcodec) ** G.711.0 (G.711 LLC) ** G.711.1 (Wideband extension for G.711; 64/80/96kbit/s) ** G.711.1D (Super-wideband extension for G.711.1; 96/112/128kbit/s) ** G.718 (8/12/16/24/32kbit/s) ** G.718B (Super-wideband extension for G.718; 28–48kbit/s) **

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 ...

(superseded by G.726; 32kbit/s) ***

's public domain implementation ** G.722 (SB-ADPCM; 48/56/64kbit/s) *** FFmpeg ** G.722B (Super-wideband extension for G.722; 64/80/96kbit/s) ** G.722.2 (

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 ...

) *** 3GPP TS 26.173 AMR-WB speech Codec (C-source code) reference implementation *** opencore-amr (decoder) *** FFmpeg (decoder only) ** G.723 (24 and 40 kbit/s DPCM, extension to G.721, superseded by G.726) ***

's public domain implementation **

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 ...

(MPC-MLQ or ACELP; 5.3/6.3kbit/s) *** FFmpeg ** G.726 (ADPCM; 16/24/32/40kbit/s) ***

's public domain implementation *** FFmpeg (libavcodec) ** G.727 ***

's public domain implementationFinding voice codecs for free software
Linux.com. October 14, 2005 **

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 ...

(LD-CELP; 16kbit/s) ** G.729 (CS-ACELP; 8kbit/s) *** FFmpeg (decoder only) **

G.729a 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 ...

** G.729b ** G.729ab ** G.729d (6.4kbit/s) *** FFmpeg (decoder only) ** G.729e (11.8kbit/s) **

G.729.1 G.729.1 is an 8-32 kbit/s embedded speech and audio codec providing bitstream interoperability with G.729, G.729 Annex A and G.729 Annex B. Its official name is ''G.729-based embedded variable bit rate codec: An 8-32 kbit/s scalable wideband code ...

(G.729 Annex J; Wideband extension for G.711; 8–32kbit/s) **

G.729.1E 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 ...

(Super-wideband extension for G.729.1) *

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

** internet Speech Audio Codec (iSAC) *** WebRTC * Nellymoser Asao Codec ** FFmpeg (libavcodec) * PictureTel PT716, PT716plus * PictureTel PT724 * RTAudio used by Microsoft Live Communication Server * SVOPC used by Skype * OpenLPC created by Future Dynamics ** HawkVoice (libHVDI) * ANSI/ SCTE ** ANSI/ SCTE 24-21 2006 (BroadVoice16) *** BroadVoice Speech Codec Open Source C Code ** ANSI/SCTE 24-22 2013 (iLBCv2.0) ** ANSI/SCTE 24-23 2007 (BroadVoice32) *** BroadVoice Speech Codec Open Source C Code * IETF RFCs: ** Internet Low Bit Rate Codec (iLBC, RFC 3951) developed by

Global IP Solutions Global IP Solutions (also known as GIPS) was a United States-based corporation that developed real-time voice and video processing software for IP networks, before it was acquired by Google in May 2010. The company delivered embedded software th ...

/Google *** WebRTC * IETF

SILK Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from th ...

(used by

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, debi ...

) **

CELT The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient ...

(developed by Xiph.Org Foundation) *** libcelt * MPEG-4 Audio ** MPEG-4 CELP ** MPEG-4 HVXC * Skyphone MPLP * Inmarsat ** INMARSAT-M IMBE ** Inmarsat Mini-M AMBE

=Microsoft DirectPlay

= Those codecs are used by many PC games which use voice chats via Microsoft DirectPlay API. * Voxware MetaVoice ** Windows Media Player (voxmvdec.ax) *

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 ...

** Windows Media Player (tssoft32.acm) ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * MS GSM ** Windows Media Player (msgsm32.acm) ** libgsm ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * MS-ADPCM ** Windows Media Player (msadp32.acm) ** FFmpeg

=Digital Voice Recorder

= * International Voice Association (IVA) standards: ** Digital Speech Standard / Standard Play (DSS-SP) *** FFmpeg (decoding only) ** Digital Speech Standard / Quality Play (DSS-QP) * Sony LPEC * Truespeech Triple Rate CODER (TRC) used in some pocket recorders * Intermetall MI-SC4 - used by voice recorders such as

RadioShack RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is an American retailer founded in 1921. At its peak in 1999, RadioShack operated over 8,000 worldwide stores named RadioShack or Tandy Electronics in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Austra ...

Digital Recorder and HyperHyde ** FFmpeg (decoder only)

=Mobile phone

Generation 2

European Telecommunications Standards Institute The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is an independent, not-for-profit, standardization organization in the field of information and communications. ETSI supports the development and testing of global technical standard ...

(ETSI)

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 ...

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 ...

(GSM 06.10, RPE-LTP) *** libgsm *** FFmpeg (decoder only) **

Half Rate Half Rate (HR or GSM-HR or GSM 06.20) is a speech coding system for GSM, developed in the early 1990s. Since the codec, operating at 5.6 kbit/s, requires half the bandwidth of the Full Rate codec, network capacity for voice traffic is doubled, at ...

(GSM 06.20, VSELP 5.6kbit/s) ** Enhanced Full Rate (GSM 06.60, ACELP 12.20kbit/s, compatible with AMR mode AMR_12.20) *

Telecommunications Industry Association The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) to develop voluntary, consensus-based industry standards for a wide variety of Information and Communication Technologies ( ICT) ...

(TIA) IS-95 (a.k.a. cdmaOne) ** IS-96A (QCELP 8kbit/s) ** IS-127 (EVRC 8kbit/s) ** IS-733 (QCELP 13kbit/s) *

(TIA) IS-54/IS-136 (a.k.a.

Digital AMPS IS-54 and IS-136 are second-generation ( 2G) mobile phone systems, known as Digital AMPS (D-AMPS), and a further development of the North American 1G mobile system Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS). It was once prevalent throughout the Americ ...

) ** IS-85 ( VSELP 8kbit/s) *** ITU-T G.191's IS-54 implementation ** IS-641 (ACELP 7.4kbit/s, compatible with AMR mode AMR_7.40) * Association of Radio Industries and Businesses (ARIB) RCR STD-27 ( PDC) ** PDC-HR (PSI-CELP 3.45kbit/s) ** PDC-FR (VSELP 11.2kbit/s) ** PDC-EFR CS-ACELP 8kbit/s (a.k.a. G.729) ** PDC-EFR ACELP 6.7kbit/s (compatible with AMR mode AMR_6.70)

Generation 3/4

* 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) **

Adaptive Multi-Rate The Adaptive Multi-Rate (AMR, AMR-NB or GSM-AMR) audio codec is an audio compression format optimized for speech coding. AMR speech codec consists of a multi-rate narrowband speech codec that encodes narrowband (200–3400 Hz) signals at var ...

(AMR) *** AMR-NB **** 3GPP TS 26.073 AMR speech Codec (C-source code) reference implementation **** opencore-amr (one may compile ffmpeg with—enable-libopencore-amrnb to incorporate the OpenCORE lib) **** FFmpeg (by default decoder only, but see above the compiling options to incorporate the OpenCORE lib) ***

**** 3GPP TS 26.173 AMR-WB speech Codec (C-source code) reference implementation **** opencore-amr (decoder), from OpenCORE (one may compile ffmpeg with—enable-libopencore-amrwb to incorporate the OpenCORE lib) **** vo-amrwbenc (encoder), from

VisualOn VisualOn is a Silicon Valleybased multimedia software company that provides high-definition audio and video entertainment to smartphones, tablets, laptops, connected TVs and other mobile and convergent devices. VisualOn's patented technology is ...

, included in Android (one may compile ffmpeg with—enable-libvo-amrwbenc to incorporate the VisualOn lib) **** FFmpeg (by default decoder only, but see above the compiling options). *** AMR-WB+ **** 3GPP TS 26.273 AMR-WB+ speech Codec (C-source code) reference implementation ***

Enhanced Voice Services Enhanced Voice Services (EVS) is a superwideband speech audio coding standard that was developed for VoLTE. It offers up to 20 kHz audio bandwidth and has high robustness to delay jitter and packet losses due to its channel aware coding and ...

(EVS) **** 3GPP TS.26.443 – Codec for Enhanced Voice Services (EVS) – ANSI C code (floating-point) *

3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 The 3rd Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2) is a collaboration between telecommunications associations to make a globally applicable third generation ( 3G) mobile phone system specification within the scope of the ITU's IMT-2000 project. In ...

(3GPP2) ** Enhanced Variable Rate Codec (EVRC, a.k.a. IS-127) based on

RCELP Relaxed code-excited linear prediction (RCELP) is a method used in some advanced speech codecs. The RCELP algorithm does not attempt to match the original signal exactly. Instead, it matches a time-warped version of this original signal that confo ...

*** FFmpeg (decoder only) ** Enhanced Variable Rate Codec B (EVRC-B) ** QCELP (Qualcomm Code Excited Linear Prediction) *** QCELP-8 (a.k.a. SmartRate or IS-96C) **** FFmpeg (decoder only) *** QCELP-13 (a.k.a. PureVoice or IS-733) **** FFmpeg (decoder only) ** Selectable Mode Vocoder (SMV) ** Variable Multi Rate – WideBand (VMR-WB)

=Professional mobile radio

= * APCO **

Project 25 Project 25 (P25 or APCO-25) is a suite of standards for interoperable digital two-way radio products. P25 was developed by public safety professionals in North America and has gained acceptance for public safety, security, public service, and ...

Phase 2 Enhanced Full-Rate ( AMBE+2 4400bit/s with 2800bit/s FEC) **

Phase 2 Half-Rate (AMBE+2 2450bit/s with 1150bit/s FEC) also used in NXDN and DMR *** mbelib (decoder only) ** Project 25 Phase 1 Full Rate (

IMBE Imbe may refer to: * Imbe (tree), a fruit tree native to Africa * Imbe, Okayama, a township in Japan ** Imbe Station * Imbé, a municipality in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil * Imbé de Minas, a municipality in Minas Gerais, Brazil * Imbé River, a r ...

7200bit/s) *** mbelib (decoder only) * European Telecommunications Standards Institute (

) ** ETS 300 395-2 (TETRA

ACELP Algebraic code-excited linear prediction (ACELP) is a speech coding algorithm in which a limited set of pulses is distributed as excitation to a linear prediction filter. It is a linear predictive coding (LPC) algorithm that is based on the cod ...

4.6kbit/s) *

TETRAPOL TETRAPOL (Terrestrial Trunked Radio POLice) is a digital professional mobile radio standard, as defined by the Tetrapol Publicly Available Specification (PAS), in use by professional user groups, such as public safety, military, industry and transp ...

** RPCELP 6kbit/s * D-STAR Digital Voice (AMBE 2400bit/s with 1200bit/s FEC) ** mbelib (decoder only) * Professional Digital Trunking System Industry Association (PDT Alliance) standards: ** NVOC used in China * Spirit DSP RALCWI * DSPINI ** SPR Robust ** TWELP Robust * Codec2 ** libcodec2 * RL-CELP (used in Japanese railwaysINFORMATION COLLECTION SURVEY FOR THE MEGA MANILA SUBWAY PROJECT IN THE REPUBLIC OF THE PHILIPPINES

Japan International Cooperation Agency The is a governmental agency that delivers the bulk of Official Development Assistance (ODA) for the government of Japan. It is chartered with assisting economic and social growth in developing countries, and the promotion of international co ...

September, 2015)

=Military

= * U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Federal Standard: ** FS-1015 (a.k.a. LPC-10) *** HawkVoice (libHVDI) ** FS-1016 ( CELP) *** HawkVoice (libHVDI) ** FS-1023 ( CVSD 12kbit/s) *

United States Military Standard A United States defense standard, often called a military standard, "MIL-STD", "MIL-SPEC", or (informally) "MilSpecs", is used to help achieve standardization objectives by the U.S. Department of Defense. Standardization is beneficial in achievi ...

(MIL-STD) ** MIL-STD-188 113 (CVSD 16kbit/s and 32kbit/s) *** SoX (libsox) ** MIL-STD-3005 (a.k.a. MELP) ***

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...

' 2.4 kbit/s MELP Proposed Federal Standard speech coder * NATO ** STANAG 4198 (a.k.a. LPC-10e) *** SpanDSP (open source) ** STANAG-4591 (a.k.a. MELPe) *** Microsoft Speech coder * BBN NRV developed in

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the A ...

program

Video games

* Bink Audio, Smacker Audio ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * Actimagine (

Nintendo European Research & Development Nintendo European Research & Development (NERD) is a French subsidiary for Nintendo, located in Paris, which develops software technologies and middleware for Nintendo platforms. This includes retro console emulators, patented video codecs, and D ...

) FastAudio ** MobiclipDecoder (decoder only) ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * Nintendo GCADPCM (a.k.a. DSP ADPCM or THP ADPCM) - used in

GameCube The is a home video game console developed and released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in PAL territories in 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 (1996), and predecessor of the ...

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, ...

and

Nintendo 3DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo. It was announced in March 2010 and unveiled at E3 2010 as the successor to the Nintendo DS. The system features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS video games. As an eighth-generati ...

. ** vgmstream (decoder only) ** VGAudio ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * Sony VAGAudioCompressionFormat
Unity Technologies (a.k.a. Sony PSX ADPCM) ** vgmstream (decoder only) ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * Sony HEVAG - used in PS Vita. ** vgmstream (decoder only) * Sony ATRAC9 - used in PS4 and PS Vita. ** VGAudio (decoder only) ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * Microsoft XMA - WMA variants for

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

hardware decoding. ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * Xbox ADPCM ** vgmstream (decoder only) * CRI ADX ADPCM ** vgmstream (decoder only) ** VGAudio ** FFmpeg * CRI HCA/HCA-MX - used in CRI ADX2 middleware. ** vgmstream (decoder only) ** VGAudio ** FFmpeg (decoder only) ** libcgss ** HCADecoder (decoder only) * FMOD FADPCM ** vgmstream (decoder only)

Text compression formats

BiM ''Bim'' is a 1974 Trinidad and Tobago film written by Raoul Pantin and directed by Hugh A. Robertson. It was described by Bruce Paddington as "one of the most important films to be produced in Trinidad and Tobago and... one of the classics of ...

Continuous Media Markup Language Continuous Media Markup Language (CMML) is to audio or video what HTML is to text. CMML is essentially a timed text codec. It allows file creators to structure a time-continuously sampled data file by dividing it into temporal sections (also calle ...

(CMML) *

MPEG-4 Part 17 MPEG-4 Part 17, or MPEG-4 Timed Text (MP4TT), or MPEG-4 Streaming text format is the text-based subtitle format for MPEG-4, published as ISO/IEC 14496-17 in 2006. It was developed in response to the need for a generic method for coding of text as o ...

(e.g. 3GPP Timed Text) *

ttyrec ttyrec is a program or its file format capable of recording the TTY output of a text-mode program together with timestamps and then replaying it. It is widely used for example in the ''NetHack'' community for storing game replays. It is similar ...

Video compression formats

Non-compression

* RGB 4:4:4 (only linear, transfer-converted and bit-reduced also sort of compression up to about 3:1 for HDR) * YUV 4:4:4/4:2:2/4:1:1/4:2:0 (all lower 4:4:4 is spatially compressed up to 2:1 for 4:2:0 with specific colour distortions). ** Intel IYUV * 10-bit uncompressed video * Composite digital signal - used by SMPTE D-2 and D-3 broadcast digital videocassettes * Avid DNxUncompressed * V210

Analog signals

PAL Phase Alternating Line (PAL) is a colour encoding system for analogue television. It was one of three major analogue colour television standards, the others being NTSC and SECAM. In most countries it was broadcast at 625 lines, 50 fields (25 ...

broadcast signal ** Pyctools-PAL (open source) *

NTSC The first American standard for analog television broadcast was developed by National Television System Committee (NTSC)National Television System Committee (1951–1953), Report and Reports of Panel No. 11, 11-A, 12–19, with Some supplement ...

broadcast signal ** gr-ntsc (open source) *

LaserDisc The LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as MCA DiscoVision (also known simply as "DiscoVision") in the United States in 1978. Its diameter typical ...

RF signal ** ld-decode (open source) * VHS /

S-VHS , the common initialism for Super VHS, is an improved version of the VHS standard for consumer-level video recording. Victor Company of Japan introduced S-VHS in Japan in April 1987, with their JVC-branded HR-S7000 VCR, and in certain overse ...

U-Matic U-matic is an analogue recording videocassette format first shown by Sony in prototype in October 1969, and introduced to the market in September 1971. It was among the first video formats to contain the videotape inside a cassette, as opp ...

RF signal ** VHS-Decode (open source) * Composite Video Baseband Signal (CVBS) ** VHS-Decode's CVBS-Decode (open source)

Lossless video compression

* ITU-T/ISO/IEC standards: ** H.264 lossless ***

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 ...

(encoder only) *** FFmpeg (decoder only, uses x264 for encoding) ** H.265 lossless ***

x265 x265 is a software codec for creating digital video streams in the High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC/H.265) video compression format developed by the Joint Collaborative Team on Video Coding (JCT-VC). It is available as a command-line app or ...

(encoder only) *** UHDcode (decoder only, uses x265 to read HEVC encoded files) ***FFmpeg (decoder only, uses x265 for encoding) ** Motion JPEG 2000 lossless *** libopenjpeg ** JPEG XS lossless *** FastTICO-XS * IETF standards: ** FFV1 (RFC 9043) FFV1's compression factor is comparable to Motion JPEG 2000, but based on quicker algorithms (allows real-time capture). Written by Michael Niedermayer and published as part of

under to

GNU LGPL The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is a free-software license published by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). The license allows developers and companies to use and integrate a software component released under the LGPL into their own ...

. *** FFmpeg * SMPTE standards: ** VC-2 HQ lossless (a.k.a. Dirac Pro lossless) *** libdirac *** libschroedinger * Alparysoft Lossless Video Codec (Alpary) * Apple Animation (QuickTime RLE) ** QuickTime ** FFmpeg * ArithYuv * AV1 ** libaom * AVIzlib ** LCL (VfW codec) MSZH and ZLIB ** FFmpeg *

Autodesk Animator Autodesk Animator is a 2D computer animation and painting program published in 1989 for MS-DOS. It was considered groundbreaking when initially released.

Codec (AASC) ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * CamStudio GZIP/LZO ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * Chennai Codec (EVX-1) ** Cairo Experimental Video Codec (open source) * Dxtory ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * FastCodec * Flash Screen Video v1/v2 ** FFmpeg * FM Screen Capture Codec ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * Fraps codec (FPS1) ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * Grass Valley Lossless ** Grass Valley Codec Option ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * Huffyuv Huffyuv (or HuffYUV) was written by Ben Rudiak-Gould and published under the terms of the

GNU GPL The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general u ...

as free software, meant to replace uncompressed YCbCr as a video capture format. It uses very little cpu but takes a lot of disk space. See also ffvhuff which is an "FFmpeg" only version of it. ** FFmpeg * IgCodec * Intel RLE * innoHeim/Rsupport Screen Capture Codec ** FFmpeg (decoder only) *

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 ...

A more up-to-date fork of Huffyuv is available as Lagarith ** Lagarith Codec (VfW codec) ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * LOCO - based on JPEG-LS ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * MagicYUV ** MagicYUV SDK ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * Microsoft RLE *

MSU Lossless Video Codec The MSU Lossless Video Codec is a video codec developed by the Graphics & Media Lab Video Group of Moscow State University. It was designed to provide space-effective lossless video compression. As of 2007 MSU had the second best compression rati ...

* MSU Screen Capture Lossless * - based on PNG ** FFmpeg * ScreenPresso (SPV1) ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * ScreenPressor - a successor of MSU Screen Capture Lossless ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * SheerVideo ** FFmpeg (decoder only) *

Snow Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughou ...

lossless ** FFmpeg * TechSmith Screen Capture Codec (TSCC) ** EnSharpen Video Codec for QuickTime ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * Toponoky *

Ut Video Codec Suite UT Video Codec Suite is a fast, lossless video codec, developed by and released under the free GNU General Public License. The algorithm of UT video is based on the Huffman code. UT video was developed as an alternative to HuffYUV, in order t ...

** libutvideo ** FFmpeg * VBLE ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * VMnc VMware screen codec - used by VMware Workstation ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * VP9 by

** libvpx ** FFmpeg (decoder only) *

YULS YULS or YUVsoft's Lossless Video Codec, a lossless video codec developed by YUVsoft, was designed to produce highly compressed lossless video. Compared with many lossless video codecs, YULS has the best compression ratio. Releases Refer ...

* ZeroCodec ** FFmpeg (decoder only)
ZMBV
(Zip Motion Block Video) Codec - used by

DOSBox DOSBox is a free and open-source emulator which runs software for MS-DOS compatible disk operating systems—primarily video games. It was first released in 2002, when DOS technology was becoming obsolete. Its adoption for running DOS games i ...

** FFmpeg

Lossless game codecs

* DXA **

ScummVM Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion Virtual Machine (ScummVM) is a set of game engine recreations. Originally designed to play LucasArts adventure games that use the SCUMM system, it also supports a variety of non-SCUMM games by companies ...

Tools (encoder only) ** FFmpeg (decoder only)

Lossy compression

* Discrete cosine transform (DCT, used in Digital Betacam and most of the video codecs listed below)

General

* ITU-T/ISO/IEC standards: **

H.120 H.120 was the first digital video compression standard. It was developed by COST 211 and published by the CCITT (now the ITU-T) in 1984, with a revision in 1988 that included contributions proposed by other organizations. The video turned out not ...

** H.261 (a.k.a. Px64) ***

H.261 (

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 ...

) *** Microsoft H.263 ** MPEG-1 Part 2 (

Video) ***

***

MainConcept MainConcept GmbH is a software company founded in Germany by Markus Moenig and Thomas Zabel. They specialize in developing video/audio codecs and also applications and plug-ins related to video/audio encoding. They are a subsidiary of Endeavor ...

MPEG-1 ***

TMPGEnc TMPGEnc or TSUNAMI MPEG Encoder is a video transcoder software application primarily for encoding video files to VCD and SVCD-compliant MPEG video formats and was developed by Hiroyuki Hori and Pegasys Inc.Pegasys IncTMPGEnc User License Agreem ...

** H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2 (MPEG-2 Video) ***

Canopus Canopus is the brightest star in the southern constellation of Carina and the second-brightest star in the night sky. It is also designated α Carinae, which is Latinised to Alpha Carinae. With a visual apparent magnitude ...

ProCoder ProCoder is a video-encoding and transcoding software initially developed by the Canopus Corporation, now Thomson SA. Canopus ProCoder 1.2 was released in 2002, Canopus ProCoder 1.5 in 2003 and Canopus ProCoder 2 in 2004. In 2005 Thomson Multime ...

*** Cinema Craft Encoder ***

*** InterVideo Video Decoder *** MainConcept MPEG-2 *** Microsoft H.263 ***

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 ...

***

H.263 (

) **

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 ...

(MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile) *** 3ivx *** DivX ***

*** HDX4 ***

Nero Digital Nero Digital is a brand name applied to a suite of MPEG-4-compatible video and audio compression codecs developed by Nero AG of Germany and Ateme of France. The audio codecs are integrated into the ''Nero Digital Audio+'' audio encoding tool for ...

***

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 ...

** H.264/MPEG-4 AVC or MPEG-4 Part 10 (MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding), approved for

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

***

CoreAVC CoreAVC was a proprietary codec for decoding the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC (Advanced Video Coding) video format. In 2010, when CoreAVC was a software-only decoder, it was one of the fastest software decoders, but still slower than hardware-based ones. C ...

(decoder only; limited to below Hi10P profile) ***

***

*** QuickTime H.264 *** Sorenson AVC Pro codec, Sorenson's new implementation *** OpenH264 (baseline profile only) ***

(encoder only; supports some of Hi422P and Hi444PP features) *** FFmpeg (decoder only) ** MPEG-4 AVC variants: *** MPEG-4 Web Video Coding or MPEG-4 Part 29 a subset of MPEG-4 AVC baseline profile ***

XAVC XAVC is a recording format that was introduced by Sony on October 30, 2012. XAVC is a format that will be licensed to companies that want to make XAVC products. Technical details XAVC uses level 5.2 of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, which is the highest leve ...

** HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding, H.265, MPEG-H part 2) ***

(encoder only) **

Versatile Video Coding Versatile Video Coding (VVC), also known as H.266, ISO/IEC 23090-3, and MPEG-I Part 3, is a video compression standard finalized on 6 July 2020, by the Joint Video Experts Team (JVET), a joint video expert team of the VCEG working group of ITU ...

(H.266, VVC) *** VVC Test Model (VTM reference software for VVC; open source) *** Fraunhofer Versatile Video Decoder (open source; decoder only) *** Fraunhofer Versatile Video Encoder (open source; encoder only) ** Video Coding for Browsers (VCB)/ VP8 (MPEG-4 Part 31, ISO/IEC 14496-31, RFC 6386) ***

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 ...

*** FFmpeg ** Internet Video Coding (ISO/IEC 14496-33, MPEG-4 IVC) **

Essential Video Coding MPEG-5 Essential Video Coding (EVC) is a current video compression standard that has been completed in April 2020 by decision of MPEG Working Group 11 at its 130th meeting. The standard consists of a royalty-free subset and individually switc ...

(EVC; MPEG-5 Part 1; under-development) ** LCEVC, MPEG-5 Part 2 ( Low Complexity Enhancement Video Coding) * IETF Internet Draft ( NETVC) ** xvc *** Divideon's reference implementation (open source) **

Thor Thor (; from non, Þórr ) is a prominent god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred groves and trees, strength, the protection of humankind, hallowing, ...

(forms the basis of AV1) ***

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

's reference implementation (open source) * SMPTE standards: **

VC-1 SMPTE 421, informally known as VC-1, is a video coding format. Most of it was initially developed as Microsoft's proprietary video format Windows Media Video 9 in 2003. With some enhancements including the development of a new Advanced Profile ...

(SMPTE 421M, subset of

Windows Media Video Windows Media Video (WMV) is a series of video codecs and their corresponding video coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Windows Media framework. WMV consists of three distinct codecs: The original video compression technol ...

) *** FFmpeg (decoder only) ** Dirac (SMPTE 2042-1) *** Schrödinger *** dirac-research *** FFmpeg (decoder only) * Alliance for Open Media ** AV1 (AOMedia Video 1) *** libaom *** SVT-AV1 *** rav1e (encoder only) *** dav1d (decoder only) *** libgav1 (decoder only) * Xiph.Org Foundation ** Daala (under development, basis (alongside other formats) of AV1) *** libdaala (open source) **

Theora Theora is a free lossy video compression format. It is developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation and distributed without licensing fees alongside their other free and open media projects, including the Vorbis audio format and the Ogg container ...

(based on VP3) *** FFmpeg (decoding only) *** libtheora (open source) * Apple Video (Apple RPZA) **

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 ...

* Blackbird FORscene video codec * Firebird Original FORscene video codec * Digital Video Interactive standards: ** RTV 2.1 (a.k.a. Indeo 2) *** FFmpeg (decoder only) ** PLV (Production Level Video) *** ActionMedia II driver (decoder only) * Indeo 3/4/5 * Microsoft Video 1 (MSV1, MS-CRAM, based on MotiVE) *

Open Media Commons The Open Media Commons, sometimes referred to as the Open Media Commons initiative, is a computer industry group whose goal is to "develop open, royalty-free digital rights management and codec solutions". One of their largest supporters is Sun Mi ...

standards: ** OMS Video (based on H.261) *

On2 Technologies 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 ...

TrueMotion VP3/VP4, VP5,

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 ...

, VP7; under the name ''The Duck Corporation'': TrueMotion S, TrueMotion 2, TrueMotion RT 2.0 ** FFmpeg (decoder only) *

RealVideo RealVideo, or also spelled as Real Video, is a suite of proprietary video compression formats developed by RealNetworks – the specific format changes with the version. It was first released in 1997 and was at version 10. RealVideo is supported ...

1, G2, 8, 9 and 10 ** FFmpeg ** RealMedia HD SDK * RealVideo Fractal Codec (a.k.a. Iterated Systems ClearVideo) ** FFmpeg (decoder only) *

RealMedia HD RealMedia is a proprietary multimedia container format created by RealNetworks with the filename extension . RealMedia is generally used in conjunction with RealVideo and RealAudio, while also being used for streaming content over the Internet ...

(a.k.a. RealVideo 11) ** RealMedia HD SDK *

Wavelet Codec *

Sorenson Video Sorenson Media was an American software company specializing in video encoding technology. Established in December 1995 as Sorenson Vision, the company developed technology which was licensed and ultimately acquired from Utah State University. T ...

, Sorenson Spark ** FFmpeg * VP9 by Google; VP10 was not released and instead was integrated into AV1 **

** FFmpeg *

(WMV) ** WAX (Part of the Windows Media Series) ** FFmpeg *

Guobiao standards The National Standards of the People's Republic of China (), coded as , are the standards issued by the Standardization Administration of China under the authorization of Article 10 of the Standardization Law of the People's Republic of China. A ...

(GB/T) ** Audio Video Standard (AVS) *** AVS1-P2 (GB/T 20090.2-2006) - used in China Blue High-definition Disc. **** FFmpeg (decoding only) *** AVS1-P7 (AVS-M; under-development) *** AVS2-P2 (GB/T 33475.2-2016, IEEE 1857.4 (draft)) **** uAVS2 Encoder **** xavs2 (encoder only) **** davs2 (libdavs2; decoder only) *** AVS3-P2 (draft, IEEE1857.10) **** uavs3e (encoder only) **** uavs3d (decoder only)

Scalable

VP8,Scalable Video Coding (SVC) Extension for WebRTC - 4. Operational model

World Wide Web Consortium The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working ...

, September 26, 2020 VP9, AV1, and H.266/VVC support scalable modes by default. * Scalable Video Coding (H.264/SVC; an extension of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC) * Scalable High Efficiency Video Coding (SHVC; an extension of H.265/HEVC)

Intra-frame-only

Motion JPEG 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 ...

** Morgan Multimedia M-JPEG ** Pegasus PICVideo M-JPEG ** MainConcept M-JPEG * ISO/IEC standard ** Motion JPEG 2000 (ISO/IEC 15444-3, ITU-T T.802) *** libopenjpeg *** FFmpeg *** Morgan Multimedia M-JPEG2000 *** Morgan Multimedia dcpPlayer (decoder only) ** JPEG XS (ISO/IEC 21122) Lightweight Low latency video codec *** intoPIX fastTICO-XS ** DV (IEC 61834) *** FFmpeg ** MPEG-4 SStP (ISO/IEC 14496-2) *** FFmpeg ** Motion

JPEG XR JPEG XR (JPEG extended range) is an image compression standard for continuous tone photographic images, based on the HD Photo (formerly Windows Media Photo) specifications that Microsoft originally developed and patented. It supports both lossy a ...

(ISO/IEC 29199-3, ITU-T T.833) * Apple ProRes 422/4444 ** FFmpeg * Apple Intermediate Codec ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * Apple Pixlet ** FFmpeg (decoder only) *

AVC-Intra AVC-Intra is a type of video coding developed by Panasonic, and then supported in products made by other companies. AVC-Intra is available in Panasonic's high definition broadcast products, such as, for example, their P2 card equipped broadcast c ...

** x264 (encoder only) ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * AVC-Ultra a subset of MPEG-4 AVC Hi444PP profile * XAVC-I * CineForm HD ** CineForm-SDK developed by

GoPro GoPro, Inc. (marketed as GoPro and sometimes stylized as GoPRO) is an American technology company founded in 2002 by Nick Woodman. It manufactures action cameras and develops its own mobile apps and video-editing software. Founded as Woodman ...

(open source) ** FFmpeg * SMPTE standard ** VC-2 SMPTE standard (a.k.a. Dirac Pro. SMPTE ST 2042) *** Schrödinger *** dirac-research *** VC-2 Reference Encoder and Decoder developed by BBC (open source) *** FFmpeg (the encoder only supports VC-2 HQ profile) ** VC-3 SMPTE standard (SMPTE ST 2019) *** Avid

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 ...

***

** VC-5 SMPTE standard (SMPTE ST 2073; a superset of CineForm HD) * Grass Valley HQ/HQA/HQX ** Grass Valley Codec Option ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * NewTek NT25 * NewTek SpeedHQ - used in Network Device Interface (NDI) protocol ** NewTek Codec ** FFmpeg

Stereoscopic 3D

* Multiview Video Coding

Security and surveillance cameras

(GB/T) ** AVS-S-P2 (suspended) ** SVAC (GB/T 25724-2010) * Infinity CCTV Codec (IMM4/IMM5/IMM6) ** FFmpeg (IMM4 and IMM5 decoder only)

CD-ROM or CD-related video codecs

CDXL CDXL is motion video file format developed by Commodore in the late 1980s and early 1990s for the Amiga computer platform. It is notable for being one of the earliest formats created for motion video playback from CD-ROM. Background In an era sh ...

codec ** FFmpeg (decoder 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 ...

(a.k.a. Apple Compact Video) ** FFmpeg *

Photo CD Photo CD is a system designed by Kodak for digitizing and saving photos onto a CD. Launched in 1991, the discs were designed to hold nearly 100 high quality images, scanned prints and slides using special proprietary encoding. Photo CDs are de ...

codec ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * MotionPixels - used in MovieCD ** FFmpeg (decoder only) *

CD+G CD+G (also known as CD-G, CD+Graphics and TV-Graphics) is an extension of the compact disc standard that can present low-resolution graphics alongside the audio data on the disc when played on a compatible device. CD+G discs are often used for ...

(CD+Graphics) codec ** FFmpeg (decoder only) ** VLC (decoder only) * CD+EG (CD+Extended Graphics) codec

Network video codecs

* SMPTE RDD ** LLVC (Low Latency Video Codec; SMPTE RDD 34) - used in Networked Media Interface (NMI; SMPTE RDD 40) * HEVC-SCC (Screen Content Coding Extensions) * ZRLE (RFC 6143 7.7.6) - used by VNC *

's CellB video ( RTP playload type 25) - used in Solaris's SunVideo Plus and

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, the United States Department of Energy. Located in ...

's vic (Video Conferencing Tool) *

Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...

's Network Video (nv; RTP playload type 28) - used in Xerox's nv and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's vic (Video Conferencing Tool) * CU-SeeMe video codec *

GoToMeeting GoTo Meeting (formerly GoToMeeting) is a web conferencing software by GoTo. It is an online meeting, desktop sharing, and video conferencing software package that enables the user to meet with other computer users, customers, clients, or coll ...

codec ** FFmpeg (decoder only)

Bayer video codecs

CinemaDNG CinemaDNG is the result of an Adobe-led initiative to define an industry-wide open file format for digital cinema files.Adobe Press ReleaseAdobe Starts Initiative to Develop Open Format for Digital Cinema Files CinemaDNG caters for sets of movie cl ...

(created by Adobe; used in Blackmagic cameras) * Redcode RAW (used in RED cameras) a modified version of JPEG 2000 ** libredcode * ArriRaw (used in

Arri The Arri Group () is a German manufacturer of motion picture film equipment. Based in Munich, the company was founded in 1917. It produces professional motion picture cameras, lenses, lighting and post-production equipment. Hermann Simon ment ...

cameras) * Cineform RAW (used in Silicon Imaging cameras) ** CineForm-SDK * Blackmagic RAW (used in Blackmagic cameras) ** Blackmagic RAW SDK * Cintel RAW (used in Cintel Scanner) ** FFmpeg (decoder only) *

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 ...

RAW * intoPIX TICO RAW ** intoPIX fastTICO-RAW SDK & TICO-RAW FPGA/ASIC libraries * Canon CRX - used in Canon Cinema Raw Light movie ** Canon RAW Plugin for Avid Media Access ** LibRaw (decoder only; open source)

Video games

* Bink Video, Smacker video ** FFmpeg ** libavcodec *

Nintendo is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles. Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards ...

Mobiclip Nintendo European Research & Development (NERD) is a French subsidiary for Nintendo, located in Paris, which develops software technologies and middleware for Nintendo platforms. This includes retro console emulators, patented video codecs, and ...

video codec ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * CRI Sofdec codec - a MPEG variant with 11-bit DC and color space correction; used in Sofdec middleware * CRI P256 - used in Sofdec middleware for Nintendo DSCRI・ミドルウェア、ゲーム開発者向けブログ「CRIチャンネル」を開設
Impress Watch Corporation, April 19, 2007 * Indeo Video Interactive (aka Indeo 4/5) - used in PC games for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

** FFmpeg (decoder only) ** Intel Indeo Video

Real-time

* Hap/Hap Alpha/Hap Q ** VIDVOX hap codec ** FFmpeg * DXV Codec ** Resolume DXV Codec ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * NotchLC ** FFmpeg (decoder only) * VESA Display Stream Compression (DSC) * VESA Display Compression-M (VDC-M)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Codecs Codecs tr:Çözücü listesi