[M4IF Technotes] Downloadable standard MPEG test sequences

[Olivier Amato]

Ben,
> So, there really isn't a .yuv file format, then?  Just a bunch of
> mutually incompatible formats with the same extension, and no
> programmatically way to discriminate between them.

.yuv files are generally provided in the 4:2:0 color space and are plane
oriented ( for each frame, all Y samples, then all U samples and finally all
V samples ). There is no header ( so, no way to guess picture's width /
height and frame rate ), only raw data with Y, U and V components of each
frame stored consecutively. Each sequence is generally provided in 2 formats
( CIF and QCIF ) and sometimes you can find .cif and .qcif files' extensions
to differentiate them ...
But this is not always the case, sometimes .yuv files are stored in the
4:2:2 color space and each frame is organized by pixel, with each component
stored consecutively ( as VQEG sequences for instance ).
>     Well, in that case we should convert them all the the 2vuy QuickTime
> files or whatever and make THAT the de facto standard.  The file format
for
> those is fully public, and obviously familiar to MPEG-4 folks.  And it
would
> remove ambiguity and vastly increase the number of tools that can use the
> standard test sequences.

I totally agree, it would be much easier to get a real file format for video
test sequences ...
Olivier