Codecs and Formats (Windows CE 5.0)
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 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 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 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 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).
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)
See Also
Windows Media Player Control Application Development
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