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Content Formats (Codecs)

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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. Codecs supported by this version of the Windows Media Player control include the following:

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)

  • Interactive Multimedia Association Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation (IMA ADPCM)

  • Microsoft MPEG-1 Layer 1; Microsoft MPEG-1 Layer 2

  • Windows Media Audio (WMA) v2, v7, v8, v9 (including Windows Media Audio 9 Voice)

    **Note   **Windows Media Audio v9 is supported in Windows CE .NET version 4.2 and later.

  • Fraunhofer MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3)

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)

    **Note   **Windows Media Video v9 is supported in Windows CE .NET version 4.2 and later.

    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).

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)

See Also

Windows Media Player Control

Last updated on Wednesday, April 13, 2005

© 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.