Video Formats & Codecs

If you are having any problems with video importing and/or playback, or if your project uses formats or codecs not mentioned on this page, please contact our support team at [e-mail].

Supported Formats (Containers)

Video file container contains data (video and audio). The data is encoded with one of the codecs in the next header, but the container doesn't necessarily determine which codec the data is encoded with. For example, .mov containers can contain videos encoded with H.264 or NotchLC, or HAP codecs.

LightAct supports .mp4 and .mov formats.

Supported Codecs

Codec is a portmanteau of coder/decoder and describes the algorithm used to encode and decode video data (video and audio). LightAct, as a media server, can only decode the data, not encode it.

We categorize codecs in 2 groups: ones that are decoded on the CPU and the ones decoded on the GPU. The GPU group of codecs have usually a much better performance (measured as the maximum resolution at a given framerate) at the expense of much larger file sizes.

CPU	GPU
h.264	NotchLC
	HAP, HAPa, HAPQ

Good to know: For best performance, we usually recommend HAP codec.

Good to know: You may be able to play codecs not listed in the table if they’re exported in formats that are supported by LightAct. However, as these codecs aren’t fully supported, playback performance may be limited.