What's the difference between VC-1 RCV with VC-1 elementary stream?

[tufflee]

What's the difference between VC-1 RCV with VC-1 elementary stream?

what's inside .vc1 file?

Thanks a lot...

[Trahald]

*edit* erroneous rcv info removed. *edit*

what's inside .vc1 file?A tiny bit of info in the form of simple headers and mostly picture data. a lot of the things needed for playback (a way to tell duration, a way to seek into the file) arent present .. the container helps with that.. also of course containers provide a way to add other streams like audio .

[bond]

so .rcv files are vc-1 video streams inside a "rcv" container, while .vc1 are elementary vc-1 streams?

why do the reference simple and main profile streams come as .rcv, while advanced profile comes as .vc1?

[Trahald]

i have to admit.. for the first part of my answer i did a quick google search for rcv and saw it paired with wmv so assumed it was a container. i had to family trip out of town and rushed the answer since noone had replied for a few days. ive been trying to find info about it since i got home and havent had much luck finding any info about the format. i'll edit out that part

[zambelli]

Trahald is pretty much correct.

Because WMV9 was originally developed as a codec for PC playback, it had an inherent dependency on its file container (ASF, AVI) to carry sequence header and picture size metadata necessary to correctly decode the picture. When VC-1 standardization process began and Advanced Profile was being designed, one of the key goals of Advanced Profile was to make it container and transport independent so that it could exist as a standalone elementary stream. "WMV9 classic" became VC-1 Simple/Main and most of its features were just grandfathered in.

So VC-1 Advanced Profile is the only VC-1 profile that is self-contained - it carries sequence header and picture size metadata in the bitstream. This allows the creation of VC-1 elementary streams (.vc1).

The RCV format was created to provide a lightweight encapsulation method for VC-1 Simple and Main bitstreams. It's not a full file format - it's just a simple overhead that provides sequence header and picture size information for the bitstream. Annex J and L of the SMPTE VC-1 specification describe the bitstream syntax.

[bond]

:thanks: