Video codecs

The video codecs and containers most pipelines meet: H.264, HEVC, AV1, VP8, VP9 and ProRes, in MP4, MOV, Matroska and WebM. When one of these fails, the problem is basic support.

The files

17 files in snapshot 2026-11-02. Each one's full fact sheet and recipe: GET /v1/cases/{id}, no token needed.

• AV1 and AAC in MP4codec/av1-aac.mp4 MP41920x1080 AV1 at 30 fps, stereo AAC at 48 kHz, 6 s, 3.6 MB Facts
• AV1 and Opus in Matroskacodec/av1-opus.mkv Matroska1920x1080 AV1 at 30 fps, stereo Opus at 48 kHz, 6 s, 3.6 MB Facts
• AV1 and Opus in WebMcodec/av1-opus.webm WebM1920x1080 AV1 at 30 fps, stereo Opus at 48 kHz, 6 s, 3.6 MB Facts
• H.264 and AAC in Matroskacodec/h264-aac.mkv Matroska1920x1080 H.264 at 30 fps, stereo AAC at 48 kHz, 6 s, 5.5 MB Facts
• H.264 and AAC in MOVcodec/h264-aac.mov MOV1920x1080 H.264 at 30 fps, stereo AAC at 48 kHz, 6 s, 5.5 MB Facts
• H.264 and AAC in MP4codec/h264-aac.mp4 MP41920x1080 H.264 at 30 fps, stereo AAC at 48 kHz, 6 s, 5.5 MB Facts
• HEVC and AAC in Matroskacodec/hevc-aac.mkv Matroska1920x1080 HEVC at 30 fps, stereo AAC at 48 kHz, 6 s, 5.2 MB Facts
• HEVC and AAC in MOVcodec/hevc-aac.mov MOV1920x1080 HEVC at 30 fps, stereo AAC at 48 kHz, 6 s, 5.2 MB Facts
• HEVC and AAC in MP4codec/hevc-aac.mp4 MP41920x1080 HEVC at 30 fps, stereo AAC at 48 kHz, 6 s, 5.2 MB Facts
• ProRes 422 and 16-bit PCM in Matroskacodec/prores422-pcm.mkv Matroska1920x1080 ProRes 422 at 30 fps, stereo 16-bit PCM at 48 kHz, 6 s, 49.3 MB Facts
• ProRes 422 and 16-bit PCM in MOVcodec/prores422-pcm.mov MOV1920x1080 ProRes 422 at 30 fps, stereo 16-bit PCM at 48 kHz, 6 s, 49.3 MB Facts
• ProRes 4444 and 16-bit PCM in MOVcodec/prores4444-pcm.mov MOV1920x1080 ProRes 4444 at 30 fps, stereo 16-bit PCM at 48 kHz, 6 s, 92.4 MB Facts
• VP8 and Vorbis in Matroskacodec/vp8-vorbis.mkv Matroska1920x1080 VP8 at 30 fps, stereo Vorbis at 48 kHz, 6 s, 3.1 MB Facts
• VP8 and Vorbis in WebMcodec/vp8-vorbis.webm WebM1920x1080 VP8 at 30 fps, stereo Vorbis at 48 kHz, 6 s, 3.1 MB Facts
• VP9 and Opus in Matroskacodec/vp9-opus.mkv Matroska1920x1080 VP9 at 30 fps, stereo Opus at 48 kHz, 6 s, 5.3 MB Facts
• VP9 and Opus in MP4codec/vp9-opus.mp4 MP41920x1080 VP9 at 30 fps, stereo Opus at 48 kHz, 6 s, 5.3 MB Facts
• VP9 and Opus in WebMcodec/vp9-opus.webm WebM1920x1080 VP9 at 30 fps, stereo Opus at 48 kHz, 6 s, 5.3 MB Facts

What's in every file

Every video carries its frame number and timecode, burned in at the top left, a frame code along the bottom that the checker reads, and a white flash in the first three frames of every second. The audio carries a tone with a 40 ms beep at the start of every second. So a test can tell which frame is on screen, whether any were dropped, and whether sound and picture line up.

How they were verified

Before publishing, every file was probed and decoded by FFmpeg 7.1.5-0+deb13u1 and GStreamer 1.26.2 (sidecar subtitle files are probed only), and every file with video was played through the testsrc checker, which reads the frame code to confirm frames, timing, orientation, aspect and colour.

Use them

# one file's facts
curl https://testsrc.com/v1/cases/codec/av1-aac.mp4

# play every file in this category through your player and check what it showed
testsrc run --player libvlc codec/

See the API reference for tokens, quotas and snapshots.

Other baseline categories