Intel originally reserved the fourcc’s IV30 all the way to IV50 for its Indeo codecs. IV31, IV32, IV41, and IV50 are probably the only ones you’ll ever encounter. (IV probably stands for Indeo Video.) Indeo 5 is commonly chosen as the default codec to capture video by many webcams.
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New: VLC Media Player 1.1.0 now plays Indeo 5. It can also handle Indeo 2 and 3. It can’t play Indeo 4 though. I’ll update the rest of this post when I have time. Quick Update: in the December 2009 updates, Microsoft seems to have disabled Indeo playback (all versions) from Windows Media Player. Windows users should still be able to play such files with Media Player Classic Home Cinema (very compact and similar interface to WMP) if the codec is properly installed. Quick Solution: Windows Users: 1. Type iv5setup.exe or iv5play.exe in your favorite search engine (we have one copy mirrored here); install, and play with Media Player Classic Home Cinema 2. Purchase it from Ligos ($15); install, and play with Media Player Classic Home Cinema 3. Play the file with QuickTime Player prior to version 7.5.5 * QuickTime 7.5.0 (Windows XP, Vista) QuickTime 7.1.6 (Windows 2000) QuickTime 6.5.2 (Windows 98, Me) QuickTime 5.0.2 (Windows 95) * Additional plugins may be needed for Indeo 4 or 5 playback - see at the end of this post. Mac Users: Use MPlayer OS X http://mplayerosx.sourceforge.net/ may also need the binary codecs package http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html#binary_codecs For older versions of Mac OS (9 and below), see next post. More info: INDEO = INtel viDEO The last free version of the Indeo installation package is 5.11. Version 5.2 (the latest) is pay and sold by Ligos, and is sometimes called Indeo XP. The various versions of Indeo are not backwards-compatible with each other (like the DivX’s for example) - they are totally different codecs (meaning Indeo 5 can’t decode 3 nor 4, etc.) Fortunately, most installers will bundle the three most relevant versions (3, 4, and 5). Intel originally reserved the fourcc’s IV30 all the way to IV50 for its Indeo codecs. IV31, IV32, IV41, and IV50 are probably the only ones you’ll ever encounter. (IV probably stands for Indeo Video.) Indeo 5 is commonly chosen as the default codec to capture video by many webcams. Indeo 4 and 5 (not 2 nor 3) are two of the rare codecs (commonly used at one time or other) that do not have open-source decoders (in the form of libavcodec) - meaning ffdshow-tryouts and VLC media player can’t decode them. (Credits to wikipedia article for pointing that out) Indeo 4 and 5 (and maybe 3 too) are cross-platform (can be in avi or quicktime container). Provided the codecs are properly installed, both QuickTime Player and Windows Media Player can play Indeo in either container. Microsoft has included various versions of Indeo in its OS since Windows 95. But when Windows XP SP1 was introduced, they removed Indeo 4 and 5 for unknown reasons. Users with clean installs of Windows XP SP1 were stuck with purchasing it from Ligos if they didn’t know of a better way. It appears Indeo 4 and 5 have been reintroduced in Windows XP Service Packs 2 and 3 (most likely due to a flood of death threats to Microsoft support from disgruntled users - just kidding); streaming of Indeo files has been disabled however (that is, playing the file as it is downloading). Odd feature - who streams AVI’s anyway? -- UPDATE -- It seems Microsoft pulled all versions of Indeo (3, 4 and 5) altogether from Windows in Vista. QuickTime for Windows (prior to version 7.5) can play Indeo 3 and 4 automatically, but requires an additional plugin for Indeo 5. If you have QuickTime 5 or 6 and you’re connected to the internet the plugin will download automatically. If not it can be downloaded manually from here http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=60369 (mirrored on our site here) Extract the zip and move the files to your windows/system (windows 95, 98, me), winnt/system32 (windows nt 4, 2000), or windows/system32 (windows xp, vista 32-bit) folder. If you have QuickTime 7 move the files to the winnt/system32/quicktime (windows nt 4, 2000) or windows/system32/quicktime (windows xp, vista 32-bit) folder. The Indeo 5 plugin works with versions 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 (up to 7.5.0) of QuickTime for Windows. It seems as of QuickTime 7.5 for Windows, Apple pulled the plug on Indeo 4. If you need the Indeo 4 plugin for QuickTime for Windows, get it here. Just move the file Indeo4.qtx file into your C:Program FilesQuickTimeQTSystem folder. - NEW - Apple removed support for all versions of Indeo (3, 4, 5) in QuickTime 7.5.5 for Windows. This seems hard-coded into the player: putting plug-ins into the appropriate folders no longer works to restore playback. Miscellaneous: Intel once released a nifty tool for cross-platform conversions called SmartVideo. SmartVideo will losslessly transcode an Indeo file back and forth between QuickTime and AVI containers. I’ve tested it with Indeo 3, 4, 5, and a Cinepak file and conversion works very well from avi to quicktime (all files were readable by QuickTime Player). Conversion back from a QuickTime Pro-produced Cinepak file to avi works, but not so for Indeo 4 or 5 (the error message I got was “could not read video file headers”). Perhaps the version of QuickTime Pro I was using was too new. -- UPDATE -- SmartVideo does in fact convert without any problems with QuickTime Pro 3-produced mov files. Apple may have modified mov headers in later versions. (I have not tested with QuickTime Pro 4 or 5 yet.) One more note: although SmartVideo is a great lossless transcoder, it does NOT interleave the output file. You can do that yourself using VirtualDub using a Direct Stream Copy. In my testing Indeo 5 files approximately match MPEG-1 videos of the same resolution/quality in size, and also display similar kind of artifacts (mostly square blocks) at low bitrates. -- NOT COMPLETE -- (Based on information from the now-defunct www.codeccentral.com and John McGowan’s AVI overview.) Indeo 3 uses vector quantization based image compression. Indeo 4 is totally different and is based on a “hybrid wavelet algorithm” according to Intel. Indeo 5 -- Keywords: Indeo, Ligos, IV31, IV32, IV41, IV50, Indeo Video, Indeo Video Interactive, Indeo XP ![]() Comments are closed.
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March 2023
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