A demultiplexer for digital media

Digital media

Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital form. It can refer to the technical aspect of storage and transmission Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital (as opposed to analog) form. It can refer to the technical aspect of...

 file

Computer file

A computer file is a block of arbitrary information, or resource for storing information, which is available to a computer program and is usually based on some kind of durable storage. A file is durable in the sense that it remains available for programs to use after the current program has finished...

s, or media demultiplexer also called a file splitter by laymen or consumer software providers, is software that demultiplexes individual elementary stream

Elementary stream

An elementary stream as defined by MPEG communication protocol is usually the output of an audio or video encoder. ES contains only one kind of data, e.g. audio, video or closed caption. An elementary stream is often referred to as "elementary", "data", "audio", or "video" bitstreams or streams...

s of a media file, e.g., audio

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

, video

Video

Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...

, or subtitles and sends them to their respective decoder

Decoder

A decoder is a device which does the reverse operation of an encoder, undoing the encoding so that the original information can be retrieved. The same method used to encode is usually just reversed in order to decode...

s for actual decoding. Media demultiplexers are not decoders themselves, but are format container handlers that separate program streams from a file and supply them to their respective audio, video, or subtitles decoders.

Notable file splitters

• Microsoft
  Microsoft
  Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
  
   AVI
  Audio Video Interleave
  Audio Video Interleave , known by its acronym AVI, is a multimedia container format introduced by Microsoft in November 1992 as part of its Video for Windows technology. AVI files can contain both audio and video data in a file container that allows synchronous audio-with-video playback...
  
   splitter - Part of Microsoft Windows
  Microsoft Windows
  Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
  
  .
• Haali Media Splitter - demultiplexes MP4 (MPEG-4
  MPEG-4
  MPEG-4 is a method of defining compression of audio and visual digital data. It was introduced in late 1998 and designated a standard for a group of audio and video coding formats and related technology agreed upon by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group under the formal standard ISO/IEC...
  
  ), M2TS (MPEG transport stream) and MKV (Matroska
  Matroska
  The Matroska Multimedia Container is an open standard free container format, a file format that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture or subtitle tracks in one file. It is intended to serve as a universal format for storing common multimedia content, like movies or TV shows...
  
  ) files.
• FLV Splitter - demultiplexes Flash video files.
• Gabest splitter (part of Media Player Classic
  Media Player Classic
  Media Player Classic is a compact media player for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows. The application mimics the look and feel of the old, lightweight Windows Media Player 6.4 but integrates most options and features found in modern media players...
  
  ) - demultiplexes e.g. 3GP, MP4
• libavformat (part of the FFmpeg
  FFmpeg
  FFmpeg is a free software project that produces libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. The most notable parts of FFmpeg are libavcodec, an audio/video codec library used by several other projects, libavformat, an audio/video container mux and demux library, and the ffmpeg command line...
  
   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
    MPlayer is a free and open source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux and other Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS and MorphOS are also available. The Windows version works, with some minor...
    
     and GOM Player
    Gom player
    GOM Player is a 32-bit media player for Microsoft Windows, distributed by the Gretech Corporation of South Korea. It is alleged that Gretech distributes GOM Player in violation of copyright law....
    
    
• libvlc (part of VideoLAN
  VideoLAN
  VideoLAN is a project that develops software for playing video and other media formats across a local area network . It originally developed two programs for media streaming, VideoLAN Client and VideoLAN Server , but most of the features of VLS have been incorporated into VLC, with the result...
  
   project and VLC Media Player
  VLC media player
  VLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project.VLC is a portable multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is able to...
  
  ) - demultiplexes many formats e.g. MPEG transport stream, MPEG program stream, MP4, MOV, 3GP, Ogg, OGM, ASF, WMV, WMA, MKV, FLV, etc.
• Nero
  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...
  
   Splitter
• Ogg
  Ogg
  Ogg is a free, open container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format state that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The Ogg container format can multiplex...
  
   DirectShow Filters - demultiplexes Ogg container

Playback issues

Playback difficulties (such as no playback, no audio, or no video) may result from several or legacy

Legacy system

A legacy system is an old method, technology, computer system, or application program that continues to be used, typically because it still functions for the users' needs, even though newer technology or more efficient methods of performing a task are now available...

 file splitters for a particular file format being installed on an operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

. This causes decoder

Codec

A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of "compressor-decompressor" or, more commonly, "coder-decoder"...

-to-file-splitter mismatch resulting in playback failure on media players.

See also

• Container format
• Multiplexer
  Multiplexer
  In electronics, a multiplexer is a device that selects one of several analog or digital input signals and forwards the selected input into a single line. A multiplexer of 2n inputs has n select lines, which are used to select which input line to send to the output...
  
  
• Multimedia framework
  Multimedia framework
  A multimedia framework is a software framework that handles media on a computer and through a network. A good multimedia framework offers an intuitive API and a modular architecture to easily add support for new audio, video and container formats and transmission protocols...