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  1. Developing with NDI
  2. Advanced SDK
  3. NDI SDK Review
  4. Video Formats

Receiver Codec Support Level

Receiver Codec Support Level

When creating an NDI receiver to receive compressed data, it is very important to specify the color_format field correctly on the NDIlib_recv_create_v3_t structure. The following table will list all the available values introduced with the Advanced SDK and what the values mean. If you specify a value but do not know how to handle certain frame types, it is very important that you check the FourCC of the frame and discard accordingly.

Audio for all formats, except the ones with the with_audio suffix, will be delivered in floating-point format. If the NDI source is sending AAC audio, the NDI library will attempt to decompress the audio frame and return that as floating-point format.

color_format value
Description

NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed

This value has the same meaning as NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v1.

NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v1

When connected to an NDI source that is sending SpeedHQ video, the compressed frames will be delivered to you. This mode assumes you only know how to handle SpeedHQ frames and no other format, not even uncompressed. If the NDI source sends any other video compression format frames will not be delivered to you, nor will there be an attempt to decompress the frames in the NDI library.

NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v2

When connected to an NDI source that is sending SpeedHQ video, the compressed frames will be delivered to you. This mode assumes you only know how to handle SpeedHQ frames and uncompressed frames, but no other format. If the NDI source is sending any other compression format, the frames will be delivered in UYVY format if the NDI library could decompress it.

NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v2_best

This value has the same meaning as NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v2, however, the list of uncompressed formats that can be delivered has been expanded to include 16-bit formats such as P216.

NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v3

When connected to an NDI source that is sending SpeedHQ video or H.264 video, the compressed frames will be delivered to you. This mode assumes you know how to handle SpeedHQ, H.264, and uncompressed frames, but no other format. If the NDI source is sending any other video compression format, they will be delivered to you in UYVY format if the NDI library can decompress it.

NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v3_best

This value has the same meaning as NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v3, however, the list of uncompressed formats that can be delivered has been expanded to include 16-bit formats such as P216.

NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v3_with_audio

This value has the same meaning as NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v3 but allows AAC audio frames to be passed to your layer without the NDI library decompressing them. If the NDI source is not sending AAC audio, then you will receive audio in floating-point format.

NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v4

When connected to an NDI source that is sending SpeedHQ, H.264 or H.265 video, the compressed frames will be delivered to you. This mode assumes you know how to handle SpeedHQ, H.264, H.265, and uncompressed frames, but no other format. If the NDI source is sending any other video compression format, they will be delivered to you in UYVY format if the NDI library can decompress it.

NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v4_best

This value has the same meaning as NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v4, however, the list of uncompressed formats that can be delivered has been expanded to include 16-bit formats such as P216.

NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v4_with_audio

This value has the same meaning as NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v4 but allows AAC audio frames to be passed to your layer without the NDI library decompressing them. If the NDI source is not sending AAC audio, then you will receive audio in floating-point format.

NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v5

When connected to an NDI source that is sending SpeedHQ, H.264/H.265 video or H.264/H.265 video with alpha, the compressed frames will be delivered to you. This mode assumes you know how to handle SpeedHQ, H.264, H.265, H.264 with alpha, H.265 with alpha and uncompressed frames, but no other format. If the NDI source is sending any other video compression format, they will be delivered to you in UYVY format if the NDI library can decompress it.

NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v5_best

This value has the same meaning as NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v5, however, the list of uncompressed formats that can be delivered has been expanded to include 16-bit formats such as P216.

NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v5_with_audio

This value has the same meaning as NDIlib_recv_color_format_compressed_v5 but allows AAC or OPUS audio frames to be passed to your layer without the NDI library decompressing them. If the NDI source is not sending AAC or OPUS audio, then you will receive audio in floating-point format.

Last updated 5 months ago

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