FOURCC Constants
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Video formats are identified using a four character code (FOURCC). A FOURCC value is a DWORD value containing the ASCII hexadecimal representation of four characters. The character codes are stored in the DWORD in ascending byte order.
For example, the FOURCC for content encoded with the Windows Media Video 9 codec is "WMV3". The ASCII representation of those four characters (in hexadecimal) is: 'W' = 0x57, 'M' = 0x4D, 'V' = 0x56, '3' = 0x33. Stored in a DWORD, this FOURCC value is 0x33564D57.
You must set the FOURCC of the media type as the biCompression member of the BITMAPINFOHEADER structure contained in the VIDEOINFOHEADER structure describing your video content. The most common FOURCC codes are listed in the following table along with descriptions of the content types they represent.
| FOURCC value | Description |
| "I420" | YUV video stored in planar 4:2:0 format. |
| "IYUV" | YUV video stored in planar 4:1:1 format. |
| "YV12" | YUV video stored in planar 4:2:0 or 4:1:1 format. Identical to I420/IYUV except that the U and V planes are switched. |
| "YUY2" | YUV video stored in packed 4:2:2 format. |
| "UYVY" | YUV video stored in packed 4:2:2 format. Similar to YUY2 but with different ordering of data. |
| "YVYU" | YUV video stored in packed 4:2:2 format. Similar to YUY2 but with different ordering of data. |
| "YVU9" | YUV video stored in planar 16:1:1 format. |
| "WMV1" | Content encoded with the Windows Media Video 7 codec. |
| "WMV2" | Content encoded with the Windows Media Video 8 codec. |
| "WMV3" | Content encoded with the Windows Media Video 9 codec. |
| "WMVA" | Content encoded with the older, obsolete version of the Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile codec. |
| "WVC1" | Content encoded with Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile. |
| "WMVP" | Content encoded with the Windows Media Video 9.1 Image codec. |
| "WVP2" | Content encoded with the Windows Media Video 9.1 Image v2 codec. |
| "MSS1" | Content encoded with the Windows Media Video 7 screen codec. |
| "MSS2" | Content encoded with the Windows Media Video 9 screen codec. |
See Also