A demultiplexer for
digital media
In mass communication, digital media is any media (communication), communication media that operates in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital content can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, an ...
files, or media demultiplexer, also called a file splitter by
laymen or consumer software providers, is
software
Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications.
The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...
that
demultiplexes individual
elementary streams of a media file, ''e.g.'',
audio,
video
Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...
, or
subtitles and sends them to their respective decoders for actual decoding. Media demultiplexers are not decoders themselves, but are
format container handlers that separate media streams from a (container) file and supply them to their respective audio, video, or subtitles decoders.
Notable file splitters
*
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
AVI splitter - Part of
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
.
* Haali Media Splitter - demultiplexes MP4 (
MPEG-4), M2TS (
MPEG transport stream) and MKV (
Matroska) files.
*
FLV Splitter - demultiplexes
Flash video files.
*
Gabest splitter (part of
Media Player Classic) - demultiplexes e.g. 3GP, MP4
* LAV Splitter - part of the LAV Filters project (open source DirectShow media splitter and decoders).
*
libavformat (part of the
FFmpeg project) - demultiplexes many formats e.g. 3GP, ASF, AVI, FLV, SWF, M2TS, MKV, MOV, MP4, MPG, NSV, NUT, Ogg, RM, AIFF, AU, WAV, etc.
** e.g. used in
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 Desktop, Syllable, AmigaOS, MorphOS and AROS Research Operating System are also available. A ...
and
GOM Player
*
libvlc (part of
VideoLAN project and
VLC Media Player) - demultiplexes many formats e.g. MPEG transport stream, MPEG program stream, MP4, MOV, 3GP, Ogg, OGM, ASF, WMV, WMA, MKV, FLV, etc.
*
Nero
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68) was a Roman emperor and the final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 until his ...
Splitter
*
Ogg DirectShow Filters
[Xiph.or]
Directshow Filters for Ogg Vorbis, Speex, Theora and FLAC
Retrieved 2009-09-02 - demultiplexes Ogg container
* tsMuxeR, using the Demux output option
* MP4Box, command line MP4 multiplexer/demultiplexer with GUIs like My MP4Box
Playback issues
Playback difficulties (such as no playback, no audio, or no video) may result from several or
legacy file splitters for a particular file format being installed on an
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
. This causes
decoder-to-file-splitter mismatch resulting in playback failure on
media players.
See also
*
Container format
*
Multiplexer
In electronics, a multiplexer (or mux; spelled sometimes as multiplexor), also known as a data selector, is a device that selects between several Analog signal, analog or Digital signal (electronics), digital input signals and forwards the sel ...
*
Multimedia framework
A multimedia framework is a software framework that handles Electronic media, media on a computer and through a network. A good multimedia framework offers an intuitive Application programming interface, API and a modular architecture to easily a ...
*
File spanning
References
External links
*
{{Compression Software Implementations
Broadcast engineering
Multiplexing
Free multimedia codecs, containers, and splitters