12.3. List of Defined Types

Below is a list of all the defined types in GStreamer. They are split up in separate tables for audio, video, container, subtitle and other types, for the sake of readability. Below each table might follow a list of notes that apply to that table. In the definition of each type, we try to follow the types and rules as defined by IANA for as far as possible.

Jump directly to a specific table:

Note that many of the properties are not required, but rather optional properties. This means that most of these properties can be extracted from the container header, but that - in case the container header does not provide these - they can also be extracted by parsing the stream header or the stream content. The policy is that your element should provide the data that it knows about by only parsing its own content, not another element's content. Example: the AVI header provides samplerate of the contained audio stream in the header. MPEG system streams don't. This means that an AVI stream demuxer would provide samplerate as a property for MPEG audio streams, whereas an MPEG demuxer would not. A decoder needing this data would require a stream parser in between two extract this from the header or calculate it from the stream.

Table 12-1. Table of Audio Types

Mime TypeDescriptionPropertyProperty TypeProperty ValuesProperty Description
All audio types.
audio/* All audio types rateintegergreater than 0 The sample rate of the data, in samples (per channel) per second.
channelsintegergreater than 0 The number of channels of audio data.
All raw audio types.
audio/x-raw-int Unstructured and uncompressed raw fixed-integer audio data. endiannessintegerG_BIG_ENDIAN (1234) or G_LITTLE_ENDIAN (4321) The order of bytes in a sample. The value G_LITTLE_ENDIAN (4321) means "little-endian" (byte-order is "least significant byte first"). The value G_BIG_ENDIAN (1234) means "big-endian" (byte order is "most significant byte first").
signedbooleanTRUE or FALSE Whether the values of the integer samples are signed or not. Signed samples use one bit to indicate sign (negative or positive) of the value. Unsigned samples are always positive.
widthintegergreater than 0 Number of bits allocated per sample.
depthintegergreater than 0 The number of bits used per sample. This must be less than or equal to the width: If the depth is less than the width, the low bits are assumed to be the ones used. For example, a width of 32 and a depth of 24 means that each sample is stored in a 32 bit word, but only the low 24 bits are actually used.
audio/x-raw-float Unstructured and uncompressed raw floating-point audio data. endiannessintegerG_BIG_ENDIAN (1234) or G_LITTLE_ENDIAN (4321) The order of bytes in a sample. The value G_LITTLE_ENDIAN (4321) means "little-endian" (byte-order is "least significant byte first"). The value G_BIG_ENDIAN (1234) means "big-endian" (byte order is "most significant byte first").
widthintegergreater than 0 The amount of bits used and allocated per sample.  
All encoded audio types.
audio/x-ac3AC-3 or A52 audio streams.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
audio/x-adpcmADPCM Audio streams.layoutstring "quicktime", "dvi", "microsoft" or "4xm". The layout defines the packing of the samples in the stream. In ADPCM, most formats store multiple samples per channel together. This number of samples differs per format, hence the different layouts. On the long term, we probably want this variable to die and use something more descriptive, but this will do for now.
block_aligninteger Any Chunk buffer size.
audio/x-cinepakAudio as provided in a Cinepak (Quicktime) stream.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
audio/x-dvAudio as provided in a Digital Video stream.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
audio/x-flacFree Lossless Audio codec (FLAC).    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
audio/x-gsmData encoded by the GSM codec.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
audio/x-alawA-Law Audio.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
audio/x-mulawMu-Law Audio.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
audio/x-maceMACE Audio (used in Quicktime).maceversioninteger3 or 6 The version of the MACE audio codec used to encode the stream.
audio/mpeg Audio data compressed using the MPEG audio encoding scehem. mpegversioninteger1, 2 or 4 The MPEG-version used for encoding the data. The value 1 refers to MPEG-1, -2 and -2.5 layer 1, 2 or 3. The values 2 and 4 refer to the MPEG-AAC audio encoding schemes.
framedboolean0 or 1 A true value indicates that each buffer contains exactly one frame. A false value indicates that frames and buffers do not necessarily match up.
layerinteger1, 2, or 3 The compression scheme layer used to compress the data (only if mpegversion=1).
bitrateintegergreater than 0 The bitrate, in bits per second. For VBR (variable bitrate) MPEG data, this is the average bitrate.
audio/x-qdm2Data encoded by the QDM version 2 codec.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
audio/x-pn-realaudioRealmedia Audio data.raversioninteger1 or 2 The version of the Real Audio codec used to encode the stream. 1 stands for a 14k4 stream, 2 stands for a 28k8 stream.
audio/x-speexData encoded by the Speex audio codec    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
audio/x-vorbisVorbis audio data    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
audio/x-wmaWindows Media Audiowmaversioninteger1,2 or 3 The version of the WMA codec used to encode the stream.
audio/x-parisEnsoniq PARIS audio    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
audio/x-svxAmiga IFF / SVX8 / SV16 audio    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
audio/x-nistSphere NIST audio    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
audio/x-vocSound Blaster VOC audio    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
audio/x-ircamBerkeley/IRCAM/CARL audio    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
audio/x-w64Sonic Foundry's 64 bit RIFF/WAV    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.

Table 12-2. Table of Video Types

Mime TypeDescriptionPropertyProperty TypeProperty ValuesProperty Description
All video types.
video/* All video types widthintegergreater than 0The width of the video image
heightintegergreater than 0The height of the video image
frameratefractiongreater or equal 0 The (average) framerate in frames per second. Note that this property does not guarantee in any way that it will actually come close to this value. If you need a fixed framerate, please use an element that provides that (such as "videodrop"). 0 means a variable framerate.
All raw video types.
video/x-raw-yuvYUV (or Y'Cb'Cr) video format.formatfourcc YUY2, YVYU, UYVY, Y41P, IYU2, Y42B, YV12, I420, Y41B, YUV9, YVU9, Y800 The layout of the video. See FourCC definition site for references and definitions. YUY2, YVYU and UYVY are 4:2:2 packed-pixel, Y41P is 4:1:1 packed-pixel and IYU2 is 4:4:4 packed-pixel. Y42B is 4:2:2 planar, YV12 and I420 are 4:2:0 planar, Y41B is 4:1:1 planar and YUV9 and YVU9 are 4:1:0 planar. Y800 contains Y-samples only (black/white).
video/x-raw-rgbRed-Green-Blue (RBG) video.bppintegergreater than 0 The number of bits allocated per pixel. This is usually 16, 24 or 32.
depthintegergreater than 0 The number of bits used per pixel by the R/G/B components. This is usually 15, 16 or 24.
endiannessintegerG_BIG_ENDIAN (1234) or G_LITTLE_ENDIAN (4321) The order of bytes in a sample. The value G_LITTLE_ENDIAN (4321) means "little-endian" (byte-order is "least significant byte first"). The value G_BIG_ENDIAN (1234) means "big-endian" (byte order is "most significant byte first"). For 24/32bpp, this should always be big endian because the byte order can be given in both.
red_mask, green_mask and blue_maskintegerany The masks that cover all the bits used by each of the samples. The mask should be given in the endianness specified above. This means that for 24/32bpp, the masks might be opposite to host byte order (if you are working on little-endian computers).
All encoded video types.
video/x-3ivx3ivx video.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
video/x-divxDivX video.divxversioninteger3, 4 or 5 Version of the DivX codec used to encode the stream.
video/x-dxDigital Video.systemstreambooleanFALSE Indicates that this stream is not a system container stream.
video/x-ffvFFMpeg video.ffvversioninteger1 Version of the FFMpeg video codec used to encode the stream.
video/x-h263H-263 video.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
video/x-h264H-264 video.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
video/x-huffyuvHuffyuv video.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
video/x-indeoIndeo video.indeoversioninteger3 Version of the Indeo codec used to encode this stream.
video/x-jpegMotion-JPEG video.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type. Note that video/x-jpeg only applies to Motion-JPEG pictures (YUY2 colourspace). RGB colourspace JPEG images are referred to as image/jpeg (JPEG image).
video/mpegMPEG video.mpegversioninteger1, 2 or 4 Version of the MPEG codec that this stream was encoded with. Note that we have different mimetypes for 3ivx, XviD, DivX and "standard" ISO MPEG-4. This is not a good thing and we're fully aware of this. However, we do not have a solution yet.
systemstreambooleanFALSE Indicates that this stream is not a system container stream.
video/x-msmpegMicrosoft MPEG-4 video deviations.msmpegversioninteger41, 42 or 43 Version of the MS-MPEG-4-like codec that was used to encode this version. A value of 41 refers to MS MPEG 4.1, 42 to 4.2 and 43 to version 4.3.
video/x-msvideocodecMicrosoft Video 1 (oldish codec).msvideoversioninteger1 Version of the codec - always 1.
video/x-pn-realvideoRealmedia video.rmversioninteger1, 2 or 3 Version of the Real Video codec that this stream was encoded with.
video/x-rleRLE animation format.layoutstring"microsoft" or "quicktime" The RLE format inside the Microsoft AVI container has a different byte layout than the RLE format inside Apple's Quicktime container; this property keeps track of the layout.
depthinteger1 to 64 Bitdepth of the used palette. This means that the palette that belongs to this format defines 2^depth colors.
palette_dataGstBuffer  Buffer containing a color palette (in native-endian RGBA) used by this format. The buffer is of size 4*2^depth.
video/x-svqSorensen Video.svqversioninteger1 or 3 Version of the Sorensen codec that the stream was encoded with.
video/x-tarkinTarkin video.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
video/x-theoraTheora video.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
video/x-vp3VP-3 video.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type. Note that we have different mimetypes for VP-3 and Theora, which is not necessarily a good idea. This could probably be improved.
video/x-wmvWindows Media Videowmvversioninteger1,2 or 3 Version of the WMV codec that the stream was encoded with.
video/x-xvidXviD video.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
All image types.
image/jpegJoint Picture Expert Group Image.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type. Note that image/jpeg only applies to RGB-colourspace JPEG images; YUY2-colourspace JPEG pictures are referred to as video/x-jpeg ("Motion JPEG").
image/pngPortable Network Graphics Image.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.

Table 12-3. Table of Container Types

Mime TypeDescriptionPropertyProperty TypeProperty ValuesProperty Description
video/x-ms-asfAdvanced Streaming Format (ASF).    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
video/x-msvideoAVI.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
video/x-dvDigital Video.systemstreambooleanTRUE Indicates that this is a container system stream rather than an elementary video stream.
video/x-matroskaMatroska.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
video/mpegMotion Pictures Expert Group System Stream.systemstreambooleanTRUE Indicates that this is a container system stream rather than an elementary video stream.
application/oggOgg.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
video/quicktimeQuicktime.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.
video/x-pn-realvideoDigital Video.systemstreambooleanTRUE Indicates that this is a container system stream rather than an elementary video stream.
audio/x-wavWAV.    There are currently no specific properties defined or needed for this type.

Table 12-4. Table of Subtitle Types

Mime TypeDescriptionPropertyProperty TypeProperty ValuesProperty Description
      None defined yet.

Table 12-5. Table of Other Types

Mime TypeDescriptionPropertyProperty TypeProperty ValuesProperty Description
      None defined yet.