VC-1
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
VC-1 is the informal name of the draft SMPTE standard describing a video codec based on Microsoft Windows Media Video version 9.
It is an evolution of the conventional DCT-based video codec design also found in H.261, H.263, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4. It is widely characterized as an alternative to the latest ITU-T and MPEG video codec standard known as H.264 (a.k.a. AVC a.k.a. MPEG-4 Part 10). Although VC-1 and WMV9 refer to the same codec technology, VC-1 is actually a superset of WMV9, containing coding structures not found in the original WMV9 codec. Microsoft has pledged full interoperability between embedded implementations and PC implementations of the Windows Media technology, and will add VC-1 compliance to the PC-based codec.
As of 2005, the VC-1 coding-system specification is said to be final, but formal approval is pending due to unresolved issues with interoperability and compliance issues. VC-1 will also be used in future DVD systems. Both HD-DVD and BluRay Disc have adopted VC-1 as a mandatory codec, meaning all playback-devices must be capable of decoding and playing video-content compressed by VC-1.
