INTERNAL: Additional information about using IDLffVideoWrite

Anonym Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The purpose of this Help Article is to supplement the IDL online help information about the IDLffVideoWrite object class, which became available beginning with IDL 8.1.

The IDLffVideoWrite object class allows the creation of video files, created from the choice of a large number of possible video file format and video/audio codec combinations. The underlying functionality is derived from the FFmpeg library (www.ffmpeg.org).

The IDLffVideoWrite::GetFormats and IDLffVideoWrite::GetCodecs methods generate a full listing of available file formats and video/audio codecs (see also Tables 2 through 4 below). The underlying IDLffVideoWrite functionality is provided by the FFmpeg library (www.ffmpeg.org). Not all standard FFmpeg library formats and codecs are available to IDLffVideoWrite, because our version of the library is compiled to prevent the inclusion of proprietary technologies (such as the proprietary "H.264" video codec).

Use of the MPEG-4 (mp4) and AVI file formats are mentioned in the IDL documention. However, that because of the large variety of format and codec standards provided with the underlying FFmpeg library and the many different requirements and limitations of the various video players available, it is not possible for ITT to document the use of all of the video (and audio) file formats and codecs implemented by IDLffVideoWrite or to document compatibility with all video player software.

Instead, it is up to the expertise of the end-user to determine what video file formats, codecs and other settings will work best for their own purposes.

General documentation about the IDLffVideoWrite object class can be found in the IDL Online Help under the Contents section:

IDL Programming > Objects > File Format Object Classes > IDLffVideoWrite

Other useful information about IDLffVideoWrite:

MP4 and AVI are file container formats which can contain both video and audio streams that may be compressed with various codecs. In general, the AVI file format seems to be less restrictive than MP4 with regard to the types of codec streams that it can hold.
For IDLffVideoWrite, if you don't provide any codec or bit rate settings to an AVI or MP4 file, then the following codecs and bit rates are used:
One approach to deciding what format, codec, bit rate, frame rate, etc., to include in the video that you will create is to base this on the capabilities of the video player that is expected to play the file that IDL will create.
Another strategy for deciding what will work best is to look at the various format and stream properties of files that you know to work well in various video players and then try to reproduce those settings in the video file that you create with IDLffVideoWrite.

For reference, below are some video format/codec combinations and test results for player compatibility on Windows XP in a few popular video players. Actual compatibility results on your operating system and the version of video player software you use may differ from the information below. The bit rate and frame rate (frames per second (fps)) you use to create video files may also affect your results.

Table 1: Example Video Format /Codec Combinations and Usable Video Players

Video Format	Video Codec	Usable Video Players
avi	mjpeg	VLC, Windows Media Player, QuickTime Player
avi	wmv1	VLC, Windows Media Player
avi	msmpeg4v2	VLC, Windows Media Player
mp4	mpeg4	VLC, QuickTime Player

Below are the listings produced by the GetFormat and GetCodec methods to IDLffVideoWrite, providing both the short string codes and the descriptive strings of the various formats and codecs available through the IDLffVideoWrite class.

>> Table 2: Full listing/description output from IDL 8.1 IDLffVideoWrite::GetFormats
>> Table 3: Full listing/description output from IDL 8.1 IDLffVideoWrite::GetCodecs (Video)
>> Table 4: Full listing/description output from IDL 8.1 IDLffVideoWrite::GetCodecs (Audio)

Table 2: Full listing/description output from IDL 8.1 IDLffVideoWrite::GetFormats

Video Container Format String	Video Container Format Description
ac3	raw AC-3
adts	ADTS AAC
aiff	Audio IFF
amr	3GPP AMR file format
asf	ASF format
ass	SSA/ASS format
asf_stream	ASF format
au	SUN AU format
avi	AVI format
avm2	Flash 9 (AVM2) format
crc	CRC testing format
daud	D-Cinema audio format
dirac	raw Dirac
dnxhd	raw DNxHD (SMPTE VC-3)
dts	raw DTS
dv	DV video format
eac3	raw E-AC-3
ffm	FFM (FFserver live feed) format
filmstrip	Adobe Filmstrip
flac	raw FLAC
flv	FLV format
framecrc	framecrc testing format
gif	GIF Animation
gxf	GXF format
h261	raw H.261
h263	raw H.263
h264	raw H.264 video format
image2	image2 sequence
image2pipe	piped image2 sequence
ipod	iPod H.264 MP4 format
m4v	raw MPEG-4 video format
matroska	Matroska file format
matroska	Matroska file format
mjpeg	raw MJPEG video
mlp	raw MLP
mmf	Yamaha SMAF
mp2	MPEG audio layer 2
mp3	MPEG audio layer 3
mp4	MP4 format
mpeg	MPEG-1 System format
vcd	MPEG-1 System format (VCD)
mpeg1video	raw MPEG-1 video
dvd	MPEG-2 PS format (DVD VOB)
svcd	MPEG-2 PS format (VOB)
mpeg2video	raw MPEG-2 video
vob	MPEG-2 PS format (VOB)
mpegts	MPEG-2 transport stream format
mpjpeg	MIME multipart JPEG format
mxf	Material eXchange Format
mxf_d10	Material eXchange Format, D-10 Mapping
null	raw null video format
nut	NUT format
ogg	Ogg
alaw	PCM A-law format
mulaw	PCM mu-law format
f64be	PCM 64 bit floating-point big-endian format
f64le	PCM 64 bit floating-point little-endian format
f32be	PCM 32 bit floating-point big-endian format
f32le	PCM 32 bit floating-point little-endian format
s32be	PCM signed 32 bit big-endian format
s32le	PCM signed 32 bit little-endian format
s24be	PCM signed 24 bit big-endian format
s24le	PCM signed 24 bit little-endian format
s16be	PCM signed 16 bit big-endian format
s16le	PCM signed 16 bit little-endian format
s8	PCM signed 8 bit format
u32be	PCM unsigned 32 bit big-endian format
u32le	PCM unsigned 32 bit little-endian format
u24be	PCM unsigned 24 bit big-endian format
u24le	PCM unsigned 24 bit little-endian format
u16be	PCM unsigned 16 bit big-endian format
u16le	PCM unsigned 16 bit little-endian format
u8	PCM unsigned 8 bit format
psp	PSP MP4 format
rawvideo	raw video format
rm	RealMedia format
RoQ	raw id RoQ format
rtp	RTP output format
rtsp	RTSP output format
sox	SoX native format
spdif	IEC958 - S/PDIF (IEC-61937)
swf	Flash format
3g2	3GP2 format
3gp	3GP format
truehd	raw TrueHD
rcv	VC-1 test bitstream
voc	Creative Voice file format
wav	WAV format
webm	WebM file format
yuv4mpegpipe	YUV4MPEG pipe format

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Table 3: Full listing/description output from IDL 8.1 IDLffVideoWrite::GetCodecs (Video)

Video Codec Strings	Video Codec Descriptions
asv1	ASUS V1
asv2	ASUS V2
bmp	BMP image
dnxhd	VC3/DNxHD
dvvideo	DV (Digital Video)
ffv1	FFmpeg video codec #1
ffvhuff	Huffyuv FFmpeg variant
flashsv	Flash Screen Video
flv	Flash Video (FLV) / Sorenson Spark / Sorenson H.263
gif	GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)
h261	H.261
h263	H.263 / H.263-1996
h263p	H.263+ / H.263-1998 / H.263 version 2
huffyuv	Huffyuv / HuffYUV
jpegls	JPEG-LS
ljpeg	Lossless JPEG
mjpeg	MJPEG (Motion JPEG)
mpeg1video	MPEG-1 video
mpeg4	MPEG-4 part 2
msmpeg4v1	MPEG-4 part 2 Microsoft variant version 1
msmpeg4v2	MPEG-4 part 2 Microsoft variant version 2
msmpeg4	MPEG-4 part 2 Microsoft variant version 3
pam	PAM (Portable AnyMap) image
pbm	PBM (Portable BitMap) image
pcx	PC Paintbrush PCX image
pgm	PGM (Portable GrayMap) image
pgmyuv	PGMYUV (Portable GrayMap YUV) image
png	PNG image
ppm	PPM (Portable PixelMap) image
qtrle	QuickTime Animation (RLE) video
rawvideo	raw video
roqvideo	id RoQ video
rv10	RealVideo 1.0
rv20	RealVideo 2.0
sgi	SGI image
snow	Snow
svq1	Sorenson Vector Quantizer 1 / Sorenson Video 1 / SVQ1
targa	Truevision Targa image
tiff	TIFF image
v210	Uncompressed 4:2:2 10-bit
wmv1	Windows Media Video 7
wmv2	Windows Media Video 8
zlib	LCL (LossLess Codec Library) ZLIB
zmbv	Zip Motion Blocks Video
dvbsub	DVB subtitles
dvdsub	DVD subtitles
xsub	DivX subtitles (XSUB)

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Table 4: Full listing/description output from IDL 8.1 IDLffVideoWrite::GetCodecs (Audio)

Audio Codec Strings	Audio Codec Descriptions
aac	Advanced Audio Coding
ac3	ATSC A/52A (AC-3)
alac	ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec)
flac	FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec)
mp2	MP2 (MPEG audio layer 2)
nellymoser	Nellymoser Asao
sonic	Sonic
sonicls	Sonic lossless
wmav1	Windows Media Audio 1
wmav2	Windows Media Audio 2
pcm_alaw	PCM A-law
pcm_f32be	PCM 32-bit floating point big-endian
pcm_f32le	PCM 32-bit floating point little-endian
pcm_f64be	PCM 64-bit floating point big-endian
pcm_f64le	PCM 64-bit floating point little-endian
pcm_mulaw	PCM mu-law
pcm_s8	PCM signed 8-bit
pcm_s16be	PCM signed 16-bit big-endian
pcm_s16le	PCM signed 16-bit little-endian
pcm_s24be	PCM signed 24-bit big-endian
pcm_s24daud	PCM D-Cinema audio signed 24-bit
pcm_s24le	PCM signed 24-bit little-endian
pcm_s32be	PCM signed 32-bit big-endian
pcm_s32le	PCM signed 32-bit little-endian
pcm_u8	PCM unsigned 8-bit
pcm_u16be	PCM unsigned 16-bit big-endian
pcm_u16le	PCM unsigned 16-bit little-endian
pcm_u24be	PCM unsigned 24-bit big-endian
pcm_u24le	PCM unsigned 24-bit little-endian
pcm_u32be	PCM unsigned 32-bit big-endian
pcm_u32le	PCM unsigned 32-bit little-endian
pcm_zork	PCM Zork
roq_dpcm	id RoQ DPCM
adpcm_adx	SEGA CRI ADX ADPCM
g726	G.726 ADPCM
adpcm_ima_qt	ADPCM IMA QuickTime
adpcm_ima_wav	ADPCM IMA WAV
adpcm_ms	ADPCM Microsoft
adpcm_swf	ADPCM Shockwave Flash
adpcm_yamaha	ADPCM Yamaha
dvbsub	DVB subtitles
dvdsub	DVD subtitles
xsub	DivX subtitles (XSUB)

Other useful references:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp4 (section titled "Data streams")
http://mpeg.chiariglione.org/faq/mp4-vid/mp4-vid.htm (section titled "3. What are the bitrates that are supported?")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_container_formats
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Codecs-frequently-asked-questions (section titled "How do I tell which codecs are installed on my computer?" (Windows Media Player))
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-4_Part_2

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