List of codecs - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Non-compression formats

Linear Pulse Code Modulation (LPCM, generally only described as PCM) is most used format for uncompressed audio and it is also standard for Compact Disc Digital Audio; note that LPCM is in a computer usually stored in AIFF, WAV
WAV
Waveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...

, AU
Au file format
The Au file format is a simple audio file format introduced by Sun Microsystems. The format was common on NeXT systems and on early Web pages. Originally it was headerless, being simply 8-bit µ-law-encoded data at an 8000 Hz sample rate. Hardware from other vendors often used sample rates as...

container formats or as RAW audio format
Raw audio format
RAW Audio format or just RAW Audio is a computer format for storing uncompressed audio in raw form. Comparable to WAV or AIFF in size, RAW Audio file does not include any header information . Data can be written in PCM, IEEE 754 or ASCII.-Extensions:The most typical extension is .raw or .pcm...
- Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF, audio container format)
  - FFmpeg
- WAV
  WAV
  Waveform Audio File Format , is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs...
  
  – 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...
  
  "WAVE", audio container format (format supports compression, but it is rarely used)
  - FFmpeg
Pulse-density modulation
Pulse-density modulation
Pulse-density modulation, or PDM, is a form of modulation used to represent an analog signal with digital data. In a PDM signal, specific amplitude values are not encoded into pulses of different size as they would be in PCM. Instead, it is the relative density of the pulses that corresponds to...

(PDM)
- Direct Stream Digital
  Direct Stream Digital
  Direct-Stream Digital is the trademark name used by Sony and Philips for their system of recreating audible signals which uses pulse-density modulation encoding, a technology to store audio signals on digital storage media which is used for the Super Audio CD .The signal is stored as delta-sigma...
  
  (DSD) is standard for Super Audio CD
  Super Audio CD
  Super Audio CD is a high-resolution, read-only optical disc for audio storage. Sony and Philips Electronics jointly developed the technology, and publicized it in 1999. It is designated as the Scarlet Book standard. Sony and Philips previously collaborated to define the Compact Disc standard...
  - foobar2000 Super Audio CD Decoder (based on MPEG-4 DST reference decoder)
Pulse-amplitude modulation
Pulse-amplitude modulation
Pulse-amplitude modulation, acronym PAM, is a form of signal modulation where the message information is encoded in the amplitude of a series of signal pulses....

(PAM)

Lossless data compression

Apple Lossless
Apple Lossless
Apple Lossless Apple Lossless Apple Lossless (also known as ALAC (Apple Lossless Audio Codec), or ALE (Apple Lossless Encoder) is an audio codec developed by Apple Inc. for lossless data compression of digital music. After initially being proprietary for many years, in late 2011 Apple open sourced...

Audio Codec (ALAC)
- FFmpeg
- QuickTime
ATRAC Advanced Lossless (AAL)
Direct Stream Transfer (DST)
- MPEG-4 DST reference software (ISO/IEC 14496-5:2001/Amd.10:2007)
Dolby TrueHD
Dolby TrueHD
Dolby TrueHD is an advanced lossless multi-channel audio codec developed by Dolby Laboratories which is intended primarily for high-definition home-entertainment equipment such as Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. It is the successor to the AC-3 Dolby Digital surround sound codec which was used as the...

– Optional lossless surround sound
Surround sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...

format used by HD DVD
HD DVD
HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...

and Blu-ray, it uses MLP
Meridian Lossless Packing
Meridian Lossless Packing, also known as Packed PCM , is a proprietary lossless compression technique for compressing PCM audio data developed by Meridian Audio, Ltd. MLP is the standard lossless compression method for DVD-Audio content and typically provides about 1.5:1 compression on most music...

but adds higher sample rates, bit rates, and more channels
- FFmpeg (decoding only)
DTS-HD Master Audio
DTS-HD Master Audio
DTS-HD Master Audio is a lossless audio codec created by Digital Theater System. It was previously known as DTS++. It is an extension of DTS which, when played back on devices which do not support the Master Audio or High Resolution extension, degrades to a "core" track which is lossy. DTS-HD...

– Optional lossless surround sound
Surround sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...

format used by HD DVD
HD DVD
HD DVD is a discontinued high-density optical disc format for storing data and high-definition video.Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format...

and Blu-ray, it was previously known as DTS++ and DTS-HD
Free Lossless Audio Codec (FLAC)
- FFmpeg
- libFLAC
Lossless Audio (LA)
Lossless Predictive Audio Compression
Lossless Predictive Audio Compression
Lossless predictive audio compression is an improved lossless audio compression algorithm developed by Tilman Liebchen, Marcus Purat and Peter Noll at , Technical University Berlin , to compress PCM audio in a lossless manner, unlike conventional audio compression algorithms which are...

(LPAC)
Lossless Transform Audio Compression (LTAC)
MPEG-4 Audio Lossless Coding
Audio Lossless Coding
MPEG-4 Audio Lossless Coding, also known as MPEG-4 ALS, is an extension to the MPEG-4 Part 3 audio standard to allow lossless audio compression. The extension was finalized in December 2005 and published as ISO/IEC 14496-3:2005/Amd 2:2006 in 2006...

(MPEG-4 ALS)
- MPEG-4 ALS reference software (ISO/IEC 14496-5:2001/Amd 10:2007/Cor 3:2009)
- FFmpeg (decoding only)
MPEG-4 Scalable Lossless Coding
MPEG-4 SLS
MPEG-4 SLS, or MPEG-4 Scalable to Lossless as per ISO/IEC 14496-3:2005/Amd 3:2006 , is an extension to the MPEG-4 Part 3 standard to allow lossless audio compression scalable to lossy MPEG-4 General Audio coding methods...

(MPEG-4 SLS, also used in audio profile HD-AAC)
- MPEG-4 SLS reference software (ISO/IEC 14496-5:2001/Amd 10:2007)
Meridian Lossless Packing
Meridian Lossless Packing
Meridian Lossless Packing, also known as Packed PCM , is a proprietary lossless compression technique for compressing PCM audio data developed by Meridian Audio, Ltd. MLP is the standard lossless compression method for DVD-Audio content and typically provides about 1.5:1 compression on most music...

(MLP), also known as Packed PCM (PPCM), it is as Dolby TrueHD
Dolby TrueHD
Dolby TrueHD is an advanced lossless multi-channel audio codec developed by Dolby Laboratories which is intended primarily for high-definition home-entertainment equipment such as Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. It is the successor to the AC-3 Dolby Digital surround sound codec which was used as the...

the standard lossless compression method for DVD-Audio
DVD-Audio
DVD-Audio is a digital format for delivering high-fidelity audio content on a DVD. DVD-Audio is not intended to be a video delivery format and is not the same as video DVDs containing concert films or music videos....

content
- FFmpeg (decoding only)
Monkey's Audio
Monkey's Audio
Monkey's Audio is a file format for audio data compression. Being a lossless format, Monkey's Audio does not discard data during the process of encoding, unlike lossy compression methods such as AAC, MP3, Vorbis and Musepack....

(APE)
- FFmpeg (decoding only)
mp3HD
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...
OptimFROG
OptimFROG
OptimFROG is a proprietary lossless audio data compression codec developed by Florin Ghido. OptimFROG is optimized for very high compression ratios, even for the price of slower encoding and decoding.-OptimFROG DualStream:...

(OFR)
Original Sound Quality
Original Sound Quality
Original Sound Quality is a audio file format developed in 2002 by Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH and implemented e.g. in their audio editing software Wavelab 4 for lossless audio data compression....

(OSQ)
RealAudio
RealAudio
RealAudio 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-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is...

Lossless
RK Audio (RKAU)
Shorten
Shorten
Shorten is a file format used for compressing audio data. It is a form of data compression of files and is used to losslessly compress CD-quality audio files . Shorten is no longer developed and more recent lossless audio codecs such as FLAC, Monkey's Audio , TTA, and WavPack have become more...

(SHN)
- FFmpeg (decoder only)
True Audio
TTA (codec)
True Audio is a free software, real-time lossless audio codec, based on adaptive prognostic filters.Also, .tta is the generic extension to filenames of audio files created by True Audio codec.- Codec overview :...

(TTA)
- FFmpeg (decoder only)
WavPack
WavPack
WavPack is a free, open source lossless audio compression format developed by David Bryant.-Features:WavPack compression can compress 8-, 16-, 24-, and 32-bit fixed-point, and 32-bit floating point audio files in the .WAV file format. It also supports surround sound streams and high frequency...

(WV)
- FFmpeg (decoder only)
Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless
Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless
Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless is a lossless audio codec by Microsoft, released in early 2003.It compresses an audio CD to a range of 206 to 411MB, at bit rates of 470 to 940 kbit/s. The result is a bit-for-bit duplicate of the original audio file; in other words, the audio quality on the CD will...
- Flip4Mac
  Flip4Mac
  Flip4Mac is a trademarked brand name for Telestream, Inc.'s proprietary digital media tools for the Macintosh. It is particularly known for being the only QuickTime component for Mac OS X that supports Windows Media Video, although there is non-QuickTime OS X software that supports WMV...
  
  WMV (QuickTime)

General

Adaptive Differential (or Delta) pulse-code modulation (ADPCM, see Pulse-code modulation)
Adaptive Rate-Distortion Optimised sound codeR (ARDOR
Ardor
Ardor or Ardour may refer to:* Ardor , a 1994 album by Love Spirals Downwards* Ardour , a 2010 album by instrumental hip hop/electronica producer Teebs* Ardor , a 2002 South Korean film, also known as Milae...

)
Adaptive Transform Acoustic Coding (ATRAC, used in MiniDisc
MiniDisc
The disc is permanently housed in a cartridge with a sliding door, similar to the casing of a 3.5" floppy disk. This shutter is opened automatically by a mechanism upon insertion. The audio discs can either be recordable or premastered. Recordable MiniDiscs use a magneto-optical system to record...

devices)
- FFmpeg (decoder only)
apt-X
Apt-X
The digital audio data reduction technology now known as apt-X is a family of proprietary audio codec compression algorithms developed by APT Licensing. From March 14, 2009, APT Licensing changed the company's trading identity to APTX. The original algorithm was developed in the 1980s by Dr...
Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital is the name for audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. It was originally called Dolby Stereo Digital until 1994. Except for Dolby TrueHD, the audio compression is lossy. The first use of Dolby Digital was to provide digital sound in cinemas from 35mm film prints...

(A/52, AC3)
- FFmpeg
- liba52
DTS Coherent Acoustics (DTS, Digital Theatre System Coherent Acoustics)
- FFmpeg
Impala FORscene audio codec
ITU standards:
- G.719
  G.719
  G.719 is an ITU-T standard audio codec providing high quality, moderate bit rate wideband audio coding at low computational load...
- G.722
  G.722
  G.722 is a ITU-T standard 7 kHz wideband speech codec operating at 48, 56 and 64 kbit/s. It was approved by ITU-T in November 1988. Technology of the codec is based on sub-band ADPCM ....
  - FFmpeg
- G.722.1
  G.722.1
  G.722.1 is a licensed royalty-free ITU-T standard audio codec providing high quality, moderate bit rate wideband G.722.1 is a licensed royalty-free ITU-T standard audio codec providing high quality, moderate bit rate (24 and 32 kbit/s) wideband G.722.1 is a licensed royalty-free ITU-T standard...
  
  and G.722.1 Annex C
  - libg722_1
  - libsiren (part of libmsn and msn-pecan)
- G.722.2
  - 3GPP TS 26.173 - AMR-WB speech Codec (C-source code) - reference implementation
  - opencore-amr (decoder)
  - FFmpeg (decoding only)
MPEG-1 Audio and MPEG-2 Audio
- layer I (MP1) (MPEG-1
  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 1.5 Mbit/s without excessive quality loss, making video CDs, digital cable/satellite TV and digital audio broadcasting possible.Today, MPEG-1 has become...
  
  , MPEG-2
  MPEG-2
  MPEG-2 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 which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission...
  
  and non-ISO MPEG-2.5)
  - FFmpeg (decoder only)
- layer II (MP2) (MPEG-1
  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 1.5 Mbit/s without excessive quality loss, making video CDs, digital cable/satellite TV and digital audio broadcasting possible.Today, MPEG-1 has become...
  
  , MPEG-2
  MPEG-2
  MPEG-2 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 which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission...
  
  and non-ISO MPEG-2.5)
  - FFmpeg
  - tooLame
    TooLAME
    TooLAME is a free software MPEG-1 Layer II audio encoder written primarily by Mike Cheng. While there are innumerable MP2 encoders, TooLAME is well-known and widely used for its particularly high audio quality. It has been unmaintained since 2003, but is directly succeeded by the TwoLAME code fork...
    
    (encoding only)
  - twoLame (encoding only)
- layer III (MP3
  MP3
  MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
  
  ) (MPEG-1
  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 1.5 Mbit/s without excessive quality loss, making video CDs, digital cable/satellite TV and digital audio broadcasting possible.Today, MPEG-1 has become...
  
  , MPEG-2
  MPEG-2
  MPEG-2 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 which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission...
  
  and non-ISO MPEG-2.5)
  - FFmpeg (decoding only)
  - LAME
    LAME
    LAME is a free software codec used to encode/compress audio into the lossy MP3 file format.-History:The name LAME is a recursive acronym for "LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder". Around mid-1998, Mike Cheng created LAME 1.0 as a set of modifications against the "8Hz-MP3" encoder source code...
    
    (encoding only)
- Advanced Audio Coding
  Advanced Audio Coding
  Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
  
  (AAC) (MPEG-2 Part 7)
  - FAAC
    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 , file formats , multichannel and gapless encoding/decoding and MP4 metadata tags...
    
    , FAAD
    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 , file formats , multichannel and gapless encoding/decoding and MP4 metadata tags...
  - 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...
  - iTunes
    ITunes
    iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
  - Nero AAC Codec
    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...
MPEG-4 Audio
- Advanced Audio Coding
  Advanced Audio Coding
  Advanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
  
  (AAC), (MPEG-4 Part 3
  MPEG-4 Part 3
  MPEG-4 Part 3 or MPEG-4 Audio is the third part of the ISO/IEC MPEG-4 international standard developed by Moving Picture Experts Group. It specifies audio coding methods...
  
  subpart 4), HE-AAC
  HE-AAC
  High-Efficiency Advanced Audio Coding is a lossy data compression scheme for digital audio defined as a MPEG-4 Audio profile in ISO/IEC 14496-3. It is an extension of Low Complexity AAC optimized for low-bitrate applications such as streaming audio...
  - FAAC
    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 , file formats , multichannel and gapless encoding/decoding and MP4 metadata tags...
    
    , FAAD2
  - 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...
  - iTunes
    ITunes
    iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
  - Nero AAC Codec
    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...
  - MPEG-4 AAC reference software (ISO/IEC 14496-5:2001)
- Harmonic and Individual Lines and Noise (HILN, 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...
  
  Parametric Audio Coding)
  - MPEG-4 reference software (ISO/IEC 14496-5:2001)
- TwinVQ
  TwinVQ
  TwinVQ is an audio compression technique developed by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation Human Interface Laboratories in 1994...
  - 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)
Musepack
Musepack
Musepack or MPC is an open source lossy audio codec, specifically optimized for transparent compression of stereo audio at bitrates of 160–180 kbit/s...
- FFmpeg (decoding only)
Perceptual Audio Coding
QDesign
QDesign
QDesign is a music codec, originally known as LBpack, by Dmitry Shmunk. QDesign corporation bought the codec and hired the developer to create what would become the official audio compression in Apple Computer's QuickTime v3....
- FFmpeg (decoding only)
Siren
Siren Codec
Siren is a family of patented, transform-based, wideband audio codecs developed and licensed by PictureTel Corporation . There are three Siren codecs: Siren 7, Siren 14 and Siren 22....

7
- libg722_1
- libsiren (part of libmsn and msn-pecan)
Siren 14
- libg722_1
Siren 22
TwinVQ
TwinVQ
TwinVQ is an audio compression technique developed by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation Human Interface Laboratories in 1994...
- FFmpeg (decoder only)
- NTT TwinVQ Encoder, NTT TwinVQ Player
Vorbis
Vorbis
Vorbis is a free software / open source project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation . The project produces an audio format specification and software implementation for lossy audio compression...
- aoTuV
- 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...
- libvorbis
- Tremor
  Tremor (software)
  Tremor by the Xiph.Org Foundation is a fixed-point version of the Vorbis decoder for those platforms without floating point operations.It is a software library that decodes the Vorbis audio format. It is free software released under the New BSD license...
  
  (decoder only)
Windows Media Audio
Windows Media Audio
Windows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs...

(WMA)
- Windows Media Encoder
  Windows Media Encoder
  Windows Media Encoder is a freely downloadable trial version 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 live and on-demand delivery. It is the successor...
- FFmpeg

Voice

(low bit rate, optimized for speech)

Advanced Multi-Band Excitation
Advanced Multi-Band Excitation
Advanced Multi-Band Excitation is a proprietary speech coding standard developed by Digital Voice Systems, Inc.- Overview :AMBE is a codebook-based vocoder that operates at bitrates of between 2 and 9.6 kbit/s, and at a sampling rate of 8 kHz in 20-ms frames...

(AMBE)
Algebraic Code Excited Linear Prediction (ACELP)
CDMA compression formats and codecs
- Enhanced Variable Rate Codec
  Enhanced Variable Rate Codec
  Enhanced Variable Rate CODEC is a speech codec used in CDMA networks. It was developed in 1995 to replace the QCELP vocoder which used more bandwidth on the carrier's network, thus EVRC's primary goal was to offer the mobile carriers more capacity on their networks while not increasing the amount...
  
  (EVRC)
- Enhanced Variable Rate Codec B (EVRC-B)
- QCELP
  QCELP
  Qualcomm code-excited linear prediction , also known as Qualcomm PureVoice, is a speech codec developed in 1994 by Qualcomm to increase the speech quality of the IS-96A codec earlier used in CDMA networks. It was later replaced with EVRC since it provides better speech quality with fewer bits...
  
  (Qualcomm Code Excited Linear Prediction)
  - FFmpeg (decoder only)
- Selectable Mode Vocoder (SMV)
- Variable Multi Rate – WideBand
  VMR-WB
  Variable-Rate Multimode Wideband is a source-controlled variable-rate multimode codec designed for robust encoding/decoding of wideband/narrowband speech. The operation of VMR-WB is controlled by speech signal characteristics and by traffic condition of the network...
  
  (VMR-WB)
CELT
CELT
Constrained Energy Lapped Transform is an open, royalty-free audio compression format and a free software codec with especially low algorithmic delay for use in low-latency audio communication. It is a lossy codec, meaning quality is permanently degraded to reduce file size.The algorithms are...
- libcelt
Code Excited Linear Prediction
Code Excited Linear Prediction
Code-excited linear prediction is a speech coding algorithm originally proposed by M.R. Schroeder and B.S. Atal in 1985. At the time, it provided significantly better quality than existing low bit-rate algorithms, such as residual-excited linear prediction and linear predictive coding vocoders...

(CELP)
Continuously variable slope delta modulation
Continuously variable slope delta modulation
Continuously variable slope delta modulation is a voice coding method. It is a delta modulation with variable step size Continuously variable slope delta modulation (CVSD or CVSDM) is a voice coding method. It is a delta modulation with variable step size Continuously variable slope delta...

(CVSD)
Dialogic ADPCM
Dialogic ADPCM
Dialogic ADPCM or VOX is an audio file format, optimized for storing digitized voice data at a low sampling rate. VOX files are most commonly found in telephony applications, as well as an occasional arcade redemption game....

(VOX)
Digital Speech Standard
Digital Speech Standard
Digital Speech Standard is a proprietary compressed digital audio file format defined by the International Voice Association, a co-operative venture by Olympus, Philips and Grundig. It was originally developed in 1994 by Grundig with the University of Nuremberg. In 1997, the digital speech...

(DSS)
FS-1015
FS-1015
FS-1015 is a secure telephony speech encoding standard developed by the United States Department of Defense and later by NATO. It is also known as LPC-10 and STANAG 4198....

(LPC-10)
- HawkVoice (libHVDI)
FS-1016
FS-1016
FS-1016 is a deprecated secure telephony speech encoding standard developed by the United States Department of Defense. The standard was finished 1991.Currently, the CELP algorithm is used. Unlike the vocoder used in FS-1015, CELP provides more natural speech...

(CELP)
- HawkVoice (libHVDI)
ITU standards:
- G.711
  G.711
  G.711 is an ITU-T standard for audio companding. It is primarily used in telephony. The standard was released for usage in 1972. Its formal name is Pulse code modulation of voice frequencies. It is required standard in many technologies, for example in H.320 and H.323 specifications. It can also...
  
  (a-law and μ-law companding
  Companding
  In telecommunication, signal processing, and thermodynamics, companding is a method of mitigating the detrimental effects of a channel with limited dynamic range...
  
  ), also known as PCM of voice frequencies
  - FFmpeg (libavcodec)
- G.711.0 (G.711 LLC)
- G.711.1
- G.718
  G.718
  G.718 is an ITU-T recommendation embedded scalable speech and audio codec providing high quality narrowband speech over the lower bit rates and high quality wideband speech over the complete range of bit rates...
- G.719
  G.719
  G.719 is an ITU-T standard audio codec providing high quality, moderate bit rate wideband audio coding at low computational load...
- G.721 (superseded by G.726)
- G.722
  G.722
  G.722 is a ITU-T standard 7 kHz wideband speech codec operating at 48, 56 and 64 kbit/s. It was approved by ITU-T in November 1988. Technology of the codec is based on sub-band ADPCM ....
  - FFmpeg
- G.722.1
  G.722.1
  G.722.1 is a licensed royalty-free ITU-T standard audio codec providing high quality, moderate bit rate wideband G.722.1 is a licensed royalty-free ITU-T standard audio codec providing high quality, moderate bit rate (24 and 32 kbit/s) wideband G.722.1 is a licensed royalty-free ITU-T standard...
- G.722.2 (AMR-WB
  AMR-WB
  Adaptive Multi-Rate Wideband is a patented speech coding standard developed based on Adaptive Multi-Rate encoding, using similar methodology as Algebraic Code Excited Linear Prediction...
  
  )
  - 3GPP TS 26.173 - AMR-WB speech Codec (C-source code) - reference implementation
  - opencore-amr (decoder)
  - FFmpeg (decoder only)
- G.723
  G.723
  G.723 is a ITU-T standard speech codec using extensions of G.721 providing voice quality covering 300 Hz to 3400 Hz using Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation to 24 and 40 kbit/s for digital circuit multiplication equipment applications...
  
  (24 and 40 kbit/s DPCM, extension to G.721, superseded by G.726)
- G.723.1
  G.723.1
  G.723.1 is an audio codec for voice that compresses voice audio in 30 ms frames. An algorithmic look-ahead of 7.5 ms duration means that total algorithmic delay is 37.5 ms...
  
  (MPC-MLQ or ACELP)
  - FFmpeg
- G.726
  G.726
  G.726 is an ITU-T ADPCM speech codec standard covering the transmission of voice at rates of 16, 24, 32, and 40 kbit/s. It was introduced to supersede both G.721, which covered ADPCM at 32 kbit/s, and G.723, which described ADPCM for 24 and 40 kbit/s. G.726 also introduced a new...
  
  (ADPCM)
  - FFmpeg (libavcodec)
- G.728
  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....
  
  (LD-CELP)
- G.729
  G.729
  G.729 is an audio data compression algorithm for voice that compresses digital voice in packets of 10 milliseconds duration. It is officially described as Coding of speech at 8 kbit/s using conjugate-structure algebraic code-excited linear prediction .Because of its low bandwidth requirements,...
  
  (CS-ACELP)
  - FFmpeg (decoder only)
- G.729a
- G.729d
  - FFmpeg (decoder only)
- G.729.1
  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 coder bitstream interoperable with G.729.This codec has...
GSM
Global System for Mobile Communications
GSM , is a standard set developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to describe technologies for second generation digital cellular networks...

compression formats and codecs:
- Full Rate
  Full Rate
  Full Rate or FR or GSM-FR or GSM 06.10 was the first digital speech coding standard used in the GSM digital mobile phone system. The bit rate of the codec is 13 kbit/s, or 1.625 bits/audio sample...
  
  (GSM 06.10)
  - libgsm
  - FFmpeg (decoder only)
- Half Rate
  Half Rate
  Half Rate 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 the expense of audio quality. It is recommended to use this codec when the...
  
  (GSM 06.20)
- Enhanced Full Rate
  Enhanced Full Rate
  Enhanced Full Rate or EFR or GSM-EFR or GSM 06.60 is a speech coding standard that was developed in order to improve the quite poor quality of GSM-Full Rate codec. Working at 12.2 kbit/s the EFR provides wirelike quality in any noise free and background noise conditions...
  
  (GSM 06.60)
- Adaptive Multi-Rate
  Adaptive Multi-Rate
  The Adaptive Multi-Rate audio codec is a patented audio data compression scheme optimized for speech coding. AMR was adopted as the standard speech codec by 3GPP in October 1999 and is now widely used in GSM and UMTS...
  
  (AMR)
  - AMR-NB
    - 3GPP TS 26.073 - AMR speech Codec (C-source code) - reference implementation
    - opencore-amr
    - FFmpeg (decoder only)
  - AMR-WB
    AMR-WB
    Adaptive Multi-Rate Wideband is a patented speech coding standard developed based on Adaptive Multi-Rate encoding, using similar methodology as Algebraic Code Excited Linear Prediction...
    - 3GPP TS 26.173 - AMR-WB speech Codec (C-source code) - reference implementation
    - opencore-amr (decoder)
    - FFmpeg (decoder only)
  - AMR-WB+
    AMR-WB+
    Extended Adaptive Multi-Rate – Wideband is an audio codec that extends AMR-WB. It adds support for stereo signals and higher sampling rates. Another main improvement is the use of transform coding additionally to ACELP. This greatly improves the generic audio coding...
    - 3GPP TS 26.273 - AMR-WB+ speech Codec (C-source code) - reference implementation
Harmonic Vector Excitation Coding
Harmonic Vector Excitation Coding
Harmonic Vector Excitation Coding, abbreviated as HVXC is a speech coding algorithm used in MPEG-4 Part 3 standard for very low bit rate speech coding. HVXC supports bit rates of 2 and 4 kbit/s in the fixed and variable bit rate mode and sampling frequency 8 kHz. It also operates at lower...

(HVXC)
Internet Low Bit Rate Codec (iLBC)
- WebRTC
  WebRTC
  WebRTC is a framework that was open sourced on June 1, 2011 that allows web browsers to conduct real-time video chat.Its inclusion in the World Wide Web Consortium standards is supported by Google, Mozilla and Opera....
Improved Multi-Band Excitation (IMBE)
internet Speech Audio Codec (iSAC)
- WebRTC
Mixed Excitation Linear Prediction
Mixed Excitation Linear Prediction
Mixed-excitation linear prediction is a United States Department of Defense speech coding standard used mainly in military applications and satellite communications, secure voice, and secure radio devices...

(MELP)
Nellymoser Asao Codec
Nellymoser Asao Codec
Asao is a proprietary single-channel codec and compression format optimized for low-bitrate transmission of audio, developed by Nellymoser Inc....
- FFmpeg (libavcodec)
Opus
Opus (codec)
Opus is a low-delay wideband codec intended for applications such as VoIP that will eventually be royalty-free. Opus incorporates technology from the speech-oriented SILK codec and the low-latency CELT codec...
PT716, PT716plus
PT724
RALCWI
RALCWI
Robust Advanced Low Complexity Waveform Interpolation is a low bit-rate algorithm for vocoder implementation; licensed to Spirit DSP.RALCWI technology uses unique proprietary signal decomposition and parameter encoding methods, ensuring high voice quality at high compression ratios...

(Robust Advanced Low Complexity Waveform Interpolation)
Relaxed Code Excited Linear Prediction (RCELP)
RTAudio
RTAudio
RTAudio is a Microsoft produced adaptive wide-band speech codec. It is used by Microsoft Office Communications Server and the related OCS clients ....

- used by Microsoft Live Communication Server
SILK
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...

- used by Skype
Skype
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system...
Speex
Speex
Speex is a patent-free audio compression format designed for 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. Speex claims to be free of any patent restrictions and is licensed under the revised BSD...

, patent free
- libspeex
SVOPC
SVOPC
SVOPC is a compression method for audio which is used by applications such as Skype. It is a lossy speech compression codec designed specifically towards communication channels suffering from packet loss...

- used by Skype
Triple Rate CODER (TRC) - used in some pocket recorders.
Vector Sum Excited Linear Prediction
Vector Sum Excited Linear Prediction
Vector sum excited linear prediction is a speech coding method used in several cellular standards. The VSELP algorithm is an analysis-by-synthesis coding technique and belongs to the class of speech coding algorithms known as CELP .Variations of this codec have been used in several 2G cellular...

(VSELP)
OpenLPC
- HawkVoice (libHVDI)
Voxware VR12 - used by Microsoft DirectPlay
DirectPlay
DirectPlay is part of Microsoft's DirectX API. DirectPlay is a network communication library intended for computer game development, although its general nature certainly allows it to be used for other purposes....
Voxware SC03 - used by Microsoft DirectPlay
DirectPlay
DirectPlay is part of Microsoft's DirectX API. DirectPlay is a network communication library intended for computer game development, although its general nature certainly allows it to be used for other purposes....
Voxware SC06 - used by Microsoft DirectPlay
DirectPlay
DirectPlay is part of Microsoft's DirectX API. DirectPlay is a network communication library intended for computer game development, although its general nature certainly allows it to be used for other purposes....
Truespeech
Truespeech
Truespeech is a proprietary audio codec produced by the DSP Group. It is designed for encoding voice data at low bitrates, and to be embedded into DSP chips....
- FFmpeg (decoder only)

Text codecs

BiM
BiM
BiM is an international standard defining a generic binary format for encoding XML documents.The technical specifications for BiM are found in: MPEG systems technologies - Part 1: Binary MPEG format for XML It is also known as MPEG-B Part 1.- Overview :BiM addresses a broad spectrum of...
Continuous Media Markup Language (CMML)
MPEG-4 Part 17
MPEG-4 Part 17
MPEG-4 Part 17, or MPEG-4 Timed Text, or MPEG-4 Streaming text format is the text based subtitle format for MPEG-4, published as ISO/IEC 14496-17 in 2006...

(e.g. 3GPP Timed Text)
Ogg Kate
Ogg Writ
Ogg Writ
Ogg Writ is a text-phrase codec used with the Ogg encapsulation format.It was initially designed to provide subtitles for Ogg Theora videos, but is also useful for song lyrics with Ogg FLAC or Vorbis, transcripts with Ogg Speex, or any other place where it is useful to combine text with audio or...

Lossless compression

Alpary
Animation
Animation codec
The Animation codec is a fast and lossless Quicktime video codec created by Apple Computer to enable playback of RGB video in real time without expensive hardware. It supports color depths from 1 to 32 bits, and is one of the few video codecs that supports an alpha channel...

(qtrle)
- QuickTime
- FFmpeg
ArithYuv
AVIzlib
- LCL (VfW codec)
- FFmpeg
CamStudio GZIP/LZO
Dirac
Dirac (codec)
Dirac is an open and royalty-free video compression format, specification and system developed by BBC Research at the BBC. Schrödinger and dirac-research are open and royalty-free software implementations of Dirac...

lossless
- libdirac
FastCodec
Fraps
- FFmpeg (decoder only)
FFV1
FFV1
FFV1, which stands for "FF video codec 1", is a lossless intra-frame video codec. It can use either variable length coding or arithmetic coding for entropy coding...
- FFmpeg
H264 lossless
- x264
  X264
  x264 is a free software library for encoding video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.-History:...
  
  (encoder only)
- FFmpeg (decoder only, uses x264 for encoding)
Huffyuv
Huffyuv
Huffyuv is a lossless video codec created by Ben Rudiak-Gould which is meant to replace uncompressed YCbCr as a video capture format.Despite the "YUV" in the name, it does not compress the YUV color space, but YCbCr...
- FFmpeg
JPEG 2000
JPEG 2000
JPEG 2000 is an image compression standard and coding system. It was created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group committee in 2000 with the intention of superseding their original discrete cosine transform-based JPEG standard with a newly designed, wavelet-based method...

lossless
Lagarith
Lagarith
Lagarith is an open source lossless video codec written by Ben Greenwood. It was designed and written with a few aims in mind:Speed: while not as fast as Huffyuv, it still outperforms most other lossless video codecs when it comes to encoding times, although decoding speed may be slower...
- Lagarith Codec (VfW codec)
- FFmpeg (decoder only)
LOCO
- FFmpeg (decoder only)
LZO
MSU Lossless Video Codec
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...
PNG
- CorePNG
- FFmpeg
SheerVideo
SheerVideo
SheerVideo is a family of proprietary lossless video codecs developed by BitJazz Inc. to enable capture, editing, playback, and archival of professional-quality lossless video formats in real time on low-power inexpensive hardware such as laptop computers and video cameras...
Snow lossless
- FFmpeg
TechSmith Screen Capture Codec (TSCC) used by camtasia.
- FFmpeg (decoder only)
Ut Video
- FFmpeg (decoder only)
YULS
YULS
YULS or YUVsoft's Lossless Video Codec is a lossless video codec developed by YUVsoft. It was designed to produce highly compressed lossless video. Compared to many lossless video codecs, YULS has the best compression ratio.- Releases :...
ZMBV (Zip Motion Block Video) Codec
- FFmpeg
ZRLE used by VNC

Lossy compression

Audio Video Standard (AVS)
Audio Video Standard
Audio Video Standard is a compression standard for digital audio and video, and is competing with H.264/AAC to potentially replace MPEG-2. Chinese companies own 90% of AVS patents. The audio and video files have an .avs extension as a container format.-Overview:Development of AVS was initiated by...
- OpenAVS
- FFmpeg (decoding only)
Blackbird FORscene video codec
Cineform
Cinepak
Cinepak
Cinepak is a 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. It was designed to encode 320x240 resolution video at 1x CD-ROM transfer rates. The codec was ported to the...
- FFmpeg (decoder only)
Dirac
Dirac (codec)
Dirac is an open and royalty-free video compression format, specification and system developed by BBC Research at the BBC. Schrödinger and dirac-research are open and royalty-free software implementations of Dirac...
- Schrödinger
- dirac-research
- FFmpeg (decoder only)
DV
DV
DV is a format for the digital recording and playing back of digital video. The DV codec was launched in 1995 with joint efforts of leading producers of video camcorders....
- FFmpeg
Firebird http://www.forbidden.co.uk/demos/live/ Original FORscene video codec
H.261
H.261
H.261 is a ITU-T video coding standard, ratified in November 1988. It is the first member of the H.26x family of video coding standards in the domain of the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group , and was the first video codec that was useful in practical terms.H.261 was originally designed for...
- 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...
  
  H.261 (libavcodec
  Libavcodec
  libavcodec is a free software/open source LGPL-licensed library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data. Same name but incompatible libraries are provided from both FFmpeg project and Libav project....
  
  )
MPEG-1 Part 2 (MPEG-1
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 1.5 Mbit/s without excessive quality loss, making video CDs, digital cable/satellite TV and digital audio broadcasting possible.Today, MPEG-1 has become...

Video)
- Cinema Craft Encoder
  Cinema Craft Encoder
  Cinema Craft Encoder or CCE is a video encoder for MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. It is written in assembly and optimized with SIMD multimedia instructions of compatible x86 processors....
- Elecard MPEG-1 Decoder/Encoder
- 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...
- Ligos LSX MPEG-1
- MainConcept
  MainConcept
  MainConcept GmbH is a software company developing video/audio codecs and also applications and plug-ins related to video/audio encoding.-History:...
  
  MPEG-1
- TMPGEnc
  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.. TMPGEnc can also refer to the family of software video encoders created after the success...
H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2
H.262/MPEG-2 Part 2
H.262 or MPEG-2 Part 2 is a digital video compression and encoding standard developed and maintained jointly by ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group and ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group . It is the second part of the ISO/IEC MPEG-2 standard...

(MPEG-2 Video)
- Canopus
  Canopus Corporation
  Canopus Co., Ltd. was a manufacturer of video editing cards and video editing software. The company's focus shifted from enthusiast video cards to other areas of video hardware and software after the release of their Spectra line of products. Some of their previous competitors included Matrox and...
  
  ProCoder
  ProCoder
  ProCoder is a video encoding and transcoding software initially developed by the Canopus Corporation, now the Thomson SA.Canopus ProCoder 1.2 was released in 2002, Canopus ProCoder 1.5 in 2003 and Canopus ProCoder 2 in 2004. In 2005 Canopus was acquired by Thomson Multimedia in order to bolster...
- Cinema Craft Encoder
  Cinema Craft Encoder
  Cinema Craft Encoder or CCE is a video encoder for MPEG-1 and MPEG-2. It is written in assembly and optimized with SIMD multimedia instructions of compatible x86 processors....
- Elecard MPEG-2 Video Decoder/Encoder
- 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...
- InterVideo
  InterVideo
  InterVideo was a software publisher specializing in multimedia related programs. InterVideo's products include video capturing, video editing, DVD authoring, CD/DVD recording, film distribution, and video playback. Its best known product is WinDVD. InterVideo markets its products to the retail...
  
  Video Decoder
- Ligos LSX MPEG-2
- MainConcept MPEG-2
- TMPGEnc
  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.. TMPGEnc can also refer to the family of software video encoders created after the success...
H.263
H.263
H.263 is a video compression standard originally designed as a low-bitrate compressed format for videoconferencing. It was developed by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group in a project ending in 1995/1996 as one member of the H.26x family of video coding standards in the domain of the ITU-T.H.263...
- 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...
  
  H.263 (libavcodec
  Libavcodec
  libavcodec is a free software/open source LGPL-licensed library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data. Same name but incompatible libraries are provided from both FFmpeg project and Libav project....
  
  )
MPEG-4 Part 2
MPEG-4 Part 2
MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-4 Visual is a video compression technology developed by MPEG. It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standards. It is a discrete cosine transform compression standard, similar to previous standards such as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2...

(MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile)
- 3ivx
  3ivx
  3ivx is a video codec suite, created by 3ivx Technologies, based in Sydney, Australia, that allows the creation of MPEG-4 compliant data streams. It has been designed around a need for decreased processing power for use mainly in embedded systems. First versions were published in 2001...
- DivX
  DivX
  DivX is a brand name of products created by DivX, Inc. , including the DivX Codec which has become popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality.There are two DivX codecs; the regular MPEG-4 Part 2 DivX codec and the...
- Elecard MPEG-4 Decoder/Encoder
- libavcodec
  Libavcodec
  libavcodec is a free software/open source LGPL-licensed library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data. Same name but incompatible libraries are provided from both FFmpeg project and Libav project....
- HDX4
  HDX4
  HDX4 is an MPEG-4 codec developed by a German company named Jomigo Visual Technology.Benchmark tests of c't , issue 05/2005 and Doom9.org showed that it was the fastest codec among the ones tested, with the downside of a slightly lesser encoding efficiency...
- Nero Digital
  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...
- Xvid
  XviD
  Xvid is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile . It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi masking, trellis quantization, and H.263, MPEG and custom quantization matrices.Xvid is a...
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
H.264/MPEG-4 AVC
H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC is a standard for video compression, and is currently one of the most commonly used formats for the recording, compression, and distribution of high definition video...

or MPEG-4 Part 10 (MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding), approved for Blu-ray
- CoreAVC
  CoreAVC
  CoreAVC is a proprietary codec for decoding the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video format.The decoder is currently one of the fastest software decoders, but is slower than hardware-based ones. CoreAVC supports all H.264 Profiles except for 4:2:2 and 4:4:4.CoreAVC now supports two forms of GPU hardware...
- Elecard AVC Decoder/Encoder
- MainConcept
  MainConcept
  MainConcept GmbH is a software company developing video/audio codecs and also applications and plug-ins related to video/audio encoding.-History:...
- Nero Digital
  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...
- QuickTime H.264
  QuickTime
  QuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and...
- Sorenson AVC Pro codec, Sorenson
  Sorenson codec
  Sorenson codec may refer to either of three proprietary video codecs: Sorenson Video, Sorenson Video 3 or Sorenson Spark. Sorenson Video is also known as Sorenson Video Codec, Sorenson Video Quantizer or SVQ...
  
  's new implementation
- Vanguard Software Solutions
- x264
  X264
  x264 is a free software library for encoding video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.-History:...
  
  (encoder only)
- FFmpeg (decoder only)
Indeo
Indeo
Indeo Video is a video codec developed by Intel in 1992. It was sold to Ligos Corporation in 2000. While its original version was related to Intel's DVI video stream format, a hardware-only codec for the compression of television-quality video onto compact disks, Indeo was distinguished by being...

3/4/5
- FFmpeg (decoder only)
MJPEG
MJPEG
In multimedia, Motion JPEG is an informal name for a class of video formats where each video frame or interlaced field of a digital video sequence is separately compressed as a JPEG image...
- 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...
- Morgan Multimedia M-JPEG
- Pegasus PICVideo M-JPEG
- PICVideo
JPEG 2000
JPEG 2000
JPEG 2000 is an image compression standard and coding system. It was created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group committee in 2000 with the intention of superseding their original discrete cosine transform-based JPEG standard with a newly designed, wavelet-based method...

intra frame video codec
- FFmpeg
OMS Video
OMS Video
OMS Video is an open, royalty-free video compression specification currently under development by Sun Microsystems's Open Media Commons as part of the Open Media Stack. It defines a video decoder and the associated bitstream syntax. It is intended for delivery, storage and playback of video...
On2 Technologies
On2 Technologies
On2 Technologies , formerly known as The Duck Corporation, was a small publicly-traded company , headquartered in Clifton Park, New York, that designs video codec technology. They created a series of video codecs called TrueMotion...

TrueMotion VP3
VP3
On2 TrueMotion VP3 is a 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....

/VP4, VP5
VP5
On2 TrueMotion VP5 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.It was announced by On2 Technologies in February 2002...

, VP6
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 Video, and JavaFX media files.- Overview :The VP6 codec...

, VP7
VP7
TrueMotion VP7 is a video codec developed by On2 Technologies as a successor to earlier efforts such as VP3, VP5 and TrueMotion VP6. It is a codec with both VFW and DirectShow support that On2 Technologies claims has better compression than leading competitive codecs such as MPEG-4 AVC and VC-1.-...

, VP8
VP8
VP8 is an open video compression format released by Google, originally created by On2 Technologies.After purchasing On2 Technologies in early 2010, Google has provided an irrevocable patent promise for underlying patents for the VP8 format, and released a bitstream format specification under a...

; under the name The Duck Corporation: TrueMotion S
TrueMotion S
TrueMotion S is a proprietary lossy video compression format and video codec developed by The Duck Company, now known by the name On2 Technologies....

, TrueMotion 2
- FFmpeg (decoder only)
Pixlet
Pixlet
Pixlet is a video codec created by Apple and based on wavelets, designed to enable viewing of full resolution, HD movies in real time at low DV data rates. According to Apple's claims, it allows for a 20-25:1 compression ratio. Similar to DV, it does not use interframe compression, making it...
Apple ProRes 422
ProRes 422
ProRes 422 is a standard-definition and high-definition lossy video compression format developed by Apple Inc. for use in post production. It was introduced in 2007 with Final Cut Studio 2 and is comparable to Avid's DNxHD codec which has the same purpose and uses similar bit rates...
- FFmpeg
RealVideo
RealVideo
RealVideo 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 is at version 10. RealVideo is supported on many platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, and several mobile...
- FFmpeg
Snow Wavelet Codec
Sorenson Video, Sorenson Spark
- FFmpeg
Tarkin
Theora
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....
- FFmpeg (decoding only)
- libtheora
VC-1
VC-1
VC-1 is the informal name of the SMPTE 421M video codec standard, which was initially developed as a proprietary video format by Microsoft before it was released as a formal SMPTE standard video format on April 3, 2006...

(SMPTE standard, subset of Windows Media Video
Windows Media Video
'Windows Media Video is a video compression format for several proprietary codecs developed by Microsoft. The original video format, known as WMV, was originally designed for Internet streaming applications, as a competitor to RealVideo. The other formats, such as WMV Screen and WMV Image, cater...

)
- FFmpeg (decoder only)
VC-2 SMPTE standard (a.k.a. Dirac Pro)
- Schrödinger
- dirac-research
VC-3 SMPTE standard
- Avid DNxHD
- 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...
Windows Media Video
Windows Media Video
'Windows Media Video is a video compression format for several proprietary codecs developed by Microsoft. The original video format, known as WMV, was originally designed for Internet streaming applications, as a competitor to RealVideo. The other formats, such as WMV Screen and WMV Image, cater...

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

External links

Subjective codec comparison
Audio formats comparison, a look at six lossless formats and five lossy formats.
http://www.fourcc.org/codecs.php, list of codec four digit codes (like DIV3, XVID, ...)
Interactive blind listening tests of audio codecs over the internet
http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en/Support/Formats,List of different audio codecs and meta-data by them
Online Video Format Identification Tool - Designed primarily for CCTV video formats and codecs

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Non-compression formats

Lossless data compression

General

Voice

Text codecs

Lossless compression

Lossy compression

See also

External links