Avidemux Specifications

Examples of compression formats (standards, specifications)

• MP3
• Vorbis
• MPEG-4 Part 2, ASP
• H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10, AVC)
• VP8

None of the items listed above is a codec, even though all of them are often erroneously referred to as such. A codec is a tool that actually does something (encodes/decodes, as the term encoder/decoder suggests), while a specification does not do (encode or decode) anything. It only describes how to make tools that do the actual work.

Examples of codecs

• LAME
• libvorbis
• libavcodec MPEG-4
• Xvid
• DivX Codec
• libvpx

None of the items listed above is a format, even though some of them are often erroneously referred to as such (see below). A software tool is not a specification. It implements the format described in the specification.