Recommended codecs for AVI output in FlyCapture1 and Ladybug SDKs

Last Revision Date: 4/13/2016

This article provides recommendations for using third-party codecs to play AVI files produced from the FlyCapture 1.x and Ladybug SDKs. 

FlyCapture 1.x and Ladybug SDKs both support saving a series of images in compressed Audio Video Interleave (AVI) container format. To play these AVI files requires an encoder/decoder (codec) tool to decompress image data for playback. (The FlyCapture 2.x SDK also supports AVI output, but in uncompressed format only, which does not require a codec.)

Because AVI is a Microsoft format, one or more codecs are bundled with Windows operating systems. However, development on these codecs has generally not kept pace over time with that of other 3rd-party codecs, and video quality is relatively poor. Instead, we recommends the following 3rd-party codecs for playing AVI files. Both of these recommended codecs are open source tools distributed under the GNU General Public License, produce high-quality output, and support large-format video produced by the Ladybug API:

• • x264vfw (http://sourceforge.net/projects/x264vfw/): This codec includes support for 64-bit systems.
  • Xvid (http://www.xvid.org/): Xvid does not support 64-bit systems.

For additional questions, please contact the Support Team.