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four character code – FourCC

Vangie Beal
Last Updated May 24, 2021 7:43 am

Short for four character code, FourCC is a sequence of four byte characters that identifies data formats. The the FourCC of a video tells Windows that codec the video contains. FourCC is most commonly associated as the identifier for Microsoft’s AVI format, however FourCC is used by other formats as well. Examples of registered FOURCC codes include the following:

  • CC12 (Intel Corporation) Intel YUV12 codec
  • DIVX (DivXNetworks, Inc.) DivX video codec.
  • DXTC (Microsoft Corporation) DirectX texture compression.
  • JPEG (Microsoft Corporation) Still image JPEG.
  • MP2V (Media Excel Inc.) MPEG-2 video.
  • YU92 (Intel Corporation) YUV format.