Codecs and Formats
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4/8/2010
The Windows Media Player control acts as a universal player for rendering most standard multimedia formats. This includes stored and live content in network audio and video formats.
The Windows Media Player control is built on top of Microsoft DirectShow. Consequently, the DirectShow codecs included in the OS design determine the exact list of media formats that the Windows Media Player control can play.
Codecs
The following lists show all the codecs provided by Microsoft that could potentially be installed on a Windows Embedded CE-based device.
Audio Codecs
- Microsoft Pulse Code Modulation (PCM)
- Microsoft GSM 6.10 Audio (GSM 610)
- Microsoft CCITT G.711 A-Law and u-Law
- Microsoft Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation (MS ADPCM)
- Fraunhofer MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3)
- Interactive Multimedia Association Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation (IMA ADPCM)
- Microsoft MPEG-1 Layer 1
- Microsoft MPEG-1 Layer 2
- MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3) (sampling rates of 32 kHz, 44.1 kHz, and 48 kHz)
- MPEG-2 Layer 3 (MP3) (sampling rates of 16 kHz, 22.05 kHz, and 24 kHz)
- Fraunhofer Extension MPEG-2.5 (MP2.5) (sampling rates of 8 kHz, 11.025 kHz, and 12 kHz)
- Windows Media Audio (WMA) v2, v7, v8, v9
The following table shows the specific levels of support for Windows Media 9 Series audio decoders.
| Windows Media Audio 9 Support | Windows Embedded CE Version |
|---|---|
WMA Voice |
Windows CE .NET 4.2 and later |
WMA Lossless |
Windows CE 5.0 and later |
WMA Pro |
Windows CE 5.0 and later Multichannel audio is downmixed to stereo. |
Video codecs
- Microsoft MPEG-1 (MS MPEG-1)
- Microsoft RLE8
- Microsoft MPEG-4 v2, v3, ISO v1
- Windows Media Video (WMV) v7, v8, v9 (including Windows Media Video 9 Image)
The following table shows the specific levels of support for Windows Media 9 Series video decoders.
| Windows Media Video 9 Support | Windows Embedded CE Version |
|---|---|
WMV Image |
Windows CE .NET 4.2 and later |
WMV Advanced Profile |
Windows CE 5.0 and later All video is output in progressive scan mode. Only the bit stream is decoded. Additional features such as closed captions, multichannel audio, and dynamic mode changes are not supported. |
Windows Media Video supports the following output formats on the primary GDI surface: PAL1, PAL2, PAL4, PAL8, xRGB1555, RGB565, RGB24, BGR24, and xRGB8888 (ARGB8888).
Windows Media Video supports the following YUV formats for overlay surfaces: YUYV, YUV422 (YUY2), and YV12 (Planar YUV).
Both mono and stereo audio output is supported.
The following codecs are not supported: MPEG-1/2 Layer 1 (MP1) and MPEG-1/2 Layer 2 (MP2).
Formats
In addition, the following content formats (and their associated file name extensions) are supported.
Audio streaming formats
- Moving Picture Experts Group standard 1, Layer 1,2, 3 (.mpa, .mp2, .mp3)
- Windows Media Audio (.wma)
Video streaming formats
- Moving Picture Experts Group standard 1 (.mpg, .mpeg, .mpv, .mpe)
- Advanced Streaming Format (.asf)
- Windows Media Video Format (.wmv)
- Advanced Stream Redirector (.asx)
- Windows Media Audio Redirector (.wax)
- Windows Media Video Redirector (.wvx)
- Windows Media Redirector (.wmx)
Non-streaming (local playback) audio formats
- Waveform Audio (.wav)
- Sound File (.snd)
- UNIX audio (.au)
- Audio Interchange File Format (.aif, .aiff, .aifc)
Non-streaming (local playback) video formats
- Audio-Video Interleaved (.avi)