Supported Video Codecs and Containers

This document lists the supported containers and codecs you can use when you upload videos for Video Cloud to transcode into H.264 or VP6 (FLV) format. For more information about Video Cloud and H.264, see:

• H.264 Video
• Choosing H.264 Encoding For Your Videos

Understanding codecs, containers, and file extensions

Codecs, containers and file extensions are not equivalent but are often confused with one another. For example, H.264 video does not just mean a file with the extension .mp4. Video files contain both metadata (duration, dimensions, etc.) as well as the encoded and often compressed audio and video data.

• The container format defines how the metadata is stored along with the audio and video data. It does not define the coding or compression of the data.
• Codecs are responsible for encoding and decoding the video and audio streams in a video file. They can be lossy or lossless and are usually optimized for certain types of transmission. Note that there are some cases where the codec and container share a single definition, but these are uncommon.

Other terms that are often confused are encoding/decoding and muxing/demuxing.

• Encoding and decoding refer to converting the encoded video and audio data to and from streams that can be played.
• Muxing and demuxing refers to the writing and reading of audio and video streams into and from various container formats.

For more information see:

• Containers are described by this article.
• More details on codecs can be in this article.
• Additional references for codec IDs and codes can be found here and here.

Supported output formats

Video Cloud players can deliver video in one of these two classes of encoding:

• VP6-E, VP6-S(HD) video with MP3 audio in FLV
• H.264 video with AAC audio in MP4 (base, main, and high profiles)

You can upload video files in a wide variety of containers and codecs, and Video Cloud can encode them into either VP6 or H.264.

Codec support for VP6 (FLV) output

For VP6 encoding, we use Flix, which relies on the MPlayer codec package as well as libavcodec. Codec support for Flix can be found here.

Supported container formats and codecs for H.264

These tables represent the supported list of container formats and codecs for uploaded source videos that Video Cloud can decode and then transcode into H.264 video:

• Supported containers for H.264 output
  
• Supported codecs for H.264 output
• Codecs not yet supported for H.264 output
  

Note that we have not tested each of these containers or codecs. If you run into problems uploading a video in one of the containers or codecs listed as supported, contact Brightcove customer support.

For H.264 encoding, we use Ffmpeg, which depends on libavcodec for codec support. Through libavcodec, we offer support for reading and decoding the containers and codecs listed in the tables below.

Container support for H.264 output

Codec Support for H.264 Output

Codecs Not Yet Supported for H.264 Output