A
video coding format (or sometimes
video compression format) is a
content representation format for storage or transmission of
digital video content (such as in a data file or
bitstream). Examples of video coding formats include
MPEG-2 Part 2,
MPEG-4 Part 2,
H.264 (MPEG-4 Part 10),
HEVC,
Theora,
Dirac,
RealVideo RV40,
VP8, and
VP9. A specific software or hardware implementation capable of
video compression and/or decompression to/from a specific video coding format is called a
video codec; an example of a video codec is
Xvid, which is one of several different codecs which implements encoding and decoding videos in the
MPEG-4 Part 2 video coding format in software. As an analogy, a video coding format (specification) is to a codec (specific implementation) what the
C Programming Language (specification) is to compiler such as
GCC (specific implementation).