---------------- | FILE FORMATS | ---------------- PPM FORMAT ---------- To give you an idea of what a PPM file is, the following code will write one out: int **red, **green, **blue; void WritePPM(char *fileName, int width, int height, int maxVal) { register int x, y; unsigned char r, g, b; fprintf(stdout, "P6\n"); fprintf(stdout, "%d %d\n", width, height); fprintf(stdout, "%d\n", maxVal); for ( y = 0; y < height; y++ ) for ( x = 0; x < width; x++ ) { r = red[x][y]; g = green[x][y]; b = blue[x][y]; fwrite(&r, 1, 1, stdout); fwrite(&g, 1, 1, stdout); fwrite(&b, 1, 1, stdout); } } maxVal is the maximum color value. It must be between 0 and 255 inclusive. Generally speaking, it should be 255 always. UCB YUV FORMAT -------------- You should be aware that the YUV format used in the MPEG encoder is DIFFERENT than the Abekas YUV format. The reason for this is that in MPEG, the U and V components are subsampled 4:1. To give you an idea of what format the YUV file must be in, the following code will read in a YUV file: unsigned char **y_data, **cr_data, **cb_data; void ReadYUV(char *fileName, int width, int height) { FILE *fpointer; register int y; /* should allocate memory for y_data, cr_data, cb_data here */ fpointer = fopen(fileName, "r"); for (y = 0; y < height; y++) /* Y */ fread(y_data[y], 1, width, fpointer); for (y = 0; y < height / 2; y++) /* U */ fread(cb_data[y], 1, width / 2, fpointer); for (y = 0; y < height / 2; y++) /* V */ fread(cr_data[y], 1, width / 2, fpointer); fclose(fpointer); } There are two reasons why you'd want to use YUV files rather than PPM files: 1) The YUV files are 50% the size of the corresponding PPM files 2) The ENCODER will run slightly faster, since it doesn't have to do the RGB to YUV conversion itself. ABEKAS YUV FORMAT ----------------- The Abekas YUV Format interlaces the Y, U, and V values in a 4:2:2 format. The interlacing pattern is UYVY for each group of 4 bytes in the file. PHILLIPS YUV FORMAT ------------------- The Phillips YUV Format interlaces the Y, U, and V values in a 4:2:2 format. The interlacing pattern is YVYU for each group of 4 bytes in the file. You may specify either ABEKAS, PHILLIPS, or UCB as the YUV_FORMAT when encoding ; the encoder defaults to UCB YUV_FORMAT if not specified. In addition, if you've got a weird interlacing format, you can also try and de-interlace it by giving the YUV pattern in the YUV_FORMAT. So a YUV 4:4:4 format would be YUVYUV