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+Understanding MPlayer's etc/codecs.conf File
+
+Introduction
+------------
+MPlayer features a very flexible codec architecture which allows it to
+use its own open source codecs, as well as open source libraries, Win32
+codec DLLs and other binary codec modules. To the MPlayer user, the
+most visible piece of this architecture is the etc/codecs.conf file. This
+is a text-based configuration file that controls which MPlayer components
+are in charge of handling particular compressed data formats.
+
+The codecs.conf file is stored either in a shared directory for all system
+users to access, or in the .mplayer directory in a user's home
+directory. When MPlayer starts, it first looks for a codecs.conf file in a
+user's home directory. Failing that, it searches for the shared file. If
+no codecs.conf file is found MPlayer falls back on its internal hardcoded
+configuration. If the file is present but has syntax errors, MPlayer will
+report the error.
+
+The codecs.conf file is really quite simple. It is simply a collection of
+codec definition blocks that define how different media types should be
+handled. There are a number of keywords that can occur in a block. Not all
+of them are required and no particular order is enforced.
+
+Editing codecs.conf
+-------------------
+You can edit codecs.conf using your favorite text editor. Anything that
+comes after a semicolon (;) on a line is regarded as a comment. For
+example:
+; this is a comment
+  format 0x34616d69  ; "ima4" (MOV files)
+
+The codec blocks can be in any order; the file parser doesn't
+care. However, they are organized in a particular order for the benefit of
+human readers. For example, all of the open source decoders that MPlayer
+implements natively are grouped in one section.
+
+Release Number
+--------------
+Your codecs.conf now requires a release number to avoid codec release
+incompatibilities. The format is simple: (YYYYMMDD)
+
+release 20020520
+
+Whenever changes are made to the codecs that *require* an updated
+codecs.conf, then MPlayer will no longer accept outdated versions.
+It is not recommended to change this line unless you know exactly
+what you are doing.
+
+Video Codecs
+------------
+Let's jump right in with an example. Here is an example video codec block:
+
+videocodec indeo5ds
+  info "Intel Indeo 5"
+  status working
+  fourcc IV50,iv50
+  driver dshow
+  dll "ir50_32.dll"
+  guid 0x30355649, 0x0000, 0x0010, 0x80, 0x00, 0x00, 0xaa, 0x00, 0x38, 0x9b, 0x71
+  out YV12
+  out YUY2
+  out BGR32,BGR24,BGR16,BGR15
+
+This is a particularly full-featured video codec. The "videocodec" keyword
+identifies the fact that this is the start of a new video
+codec. "indeo5ds" is MPlayer's unique name for the codec. You have to use
+this name with the -vc/-ac option.
+
+The next line has the keyword "info" which specifies a human-readable
+comment accompanying this codec. This is printed by -vc help / -ac help.
+
+The "status" keyword carries information about the codec's functional
+status. MPlayer currently recognizes 4 status levels: working, buggy,
+crashing, and untested. When it gets to codec auto-selection, it tries
+untested first (to force users to test it for us and report results :)),
+then working and finally buggy ones. Codecs marked crashing won't be tried,
+unless explicitly (-vc/-ac) selected.
+
+The next line lists 4-character codes (FOURCCs) that are associated with
+this codec. There can be more than one FOURCC specified on a fourcc line
+as long as they are separated with a comma. There can also be multiple
+fourcc lines in the codec. A second fourcc can also be given, separated
+with a space. MPlayer will replace the original fourcc in the headers with
+this one before opening the codec. It's useful for win32 codecs checking for
+the fourccs.
+
+The "driver" keyword associates this codec with an internal MPlayer
+decoder module. MPlayer has a module named "dshow" that handles data
+encoded by the codec. See -vfm help / -afm help for the available module list.
+
+The "dll" keyword specifies which Win32/XAnim/Real/Quicktime binary
+module needs to be loaded. It's also used to specify which FFmpeg codec
+to load. The list of FFmpeg codecs can be found in libavcodec/allcodecs.c.
+
+The "guid" keyword identifies a 16-byte Microsoft GUID that some media
+files use to identify codecs. Used only for win32 dshow and DMO codecs.
+
+The "out" keyword identifies which output format the decoder is known
+to provide. Just like the fourcc line, there can be multiple out lines or
+multiple comma-separated output formats on the same line. The output
+formats should be listed in order of preference.
+
+The outfmt values can be followed by one or more flags, like flip, noflip,
+static, query. The flags are defined as follows:
+
+"flip":
+    If this flag is set for a given format, then o_bih->biHeight will NOT be
+    set to -bih->biHeight, i.e. the image will be decoded upside-down.
+    Used only by vfw and vfwex codecs.
+
+"noflip":
+    This flag is ignored (no effect) without "flip" being set!
+    If this flag is set, it means the codec doesn't decode upside-down,
+    although it's told to do so.
+
+"yuvhack":
+    This flag is required for the old win32 ms-mpeg4 vfw codecs, including
+    MP42 and DIV3 (DivX 3.11). These DLLs actually support YUV formats,
+    but the query/begin functions are buggy and don't accept YUV fourccs
+    (the decode function accepts it and works well!)
+    If this flag is set, then o_bih->biCompression will be set to 0 for
+    the initialization for the YUV modes. Used only by vfw/vfwex codecs.
+
+"query":
+    This flag is used to control VDCTRL_QUERY_FORMAT for vfw/vfewx codecs.
+    If this flag is set, the control() will query the codec for the csp
+    support, otherwise it will assume a constant csp table. Required for
+    some DLLs (like huffyuv, CRAM).
+
+"static",
+    This flag forces STATIC (instead of TEMP) buffer allocation for the codec.
+    Used for some very old DLLs like Indeo 3 and for some XAnim codecs like
+    cinepak. See dr-methods.txt for details on buffer types.
+
+The "in" keyword -- UNDOCUMENTED
+
+Audio Codecs
+------------
+Here is an example of a rather full-featured audio codec block:
+
+audiocodec mp3
+  info "MPEG layer-2, layer-3"
+  status working
+  comment "Optimized to MMX/SSE/3Dnow!"
+  format 0x50
+  format 0x55
+  format 0x33706d2e  ; ".mp3" CBR/VBR MP3 (MOV files)
+  format 0x5500736d  ; "ms\0\x55" older mp3 fcc (MOV files)
+  driver mp3lib
+  dll "mp3lib (mpglib)"
+  flags seekable
+
+Many of the keywords are the same as a video codec block. However, we see
+a few that we haven't seen before. The "comment" keyword identifies
+another human-readable note for this codec.
+
+The "format" keyword performs a similar job as the fourcc line. However,
+since certain media file formats (notably AVI) identify audio formats with
+16-bit numbers rather than 32-bit FOURCCs, it's necessary to use this
+convention to accommodate them. However, as shown in this example, FOURCCs
+can also be specified with the format keyword as long as they're converted
+to their hex representation. It's important to note that this can be
+useful for video codecs as well if a FOURCC contains a space (such as
+Apple's "rle " codec).
+
+The "flags" keywords identifies any additional abilities of this
+codec. Currently, seekable is the only supported flag.
+
+
+Adding FFmpeg Codecs
+-------------------
+example codec:
+
+videocodec ffmdec
+  info "FFmpeg Sony PlayStation MDEC (Motion DECoder)"
+  status working
+  fourcc MDEC ; internal MPlayer FourCC
+  driver ffmpeg
+  dll mdec
+  out YV12
+
+The "videocodec" name should start with ff to differentiate it from other
+libraries or binary codecs.
+
+The "dll" name comes from the codec source file or the libavcodec/allcodecs.c
+file.
+
+The "out" colorspace can be found in the codec source file in the PIX_FMT
+struct. Note that some codecs may have several pix_fmt structs.
+The pix_fmt can be converted to the codecs.conf "out" format by reading
+the fmt-conversion.c file.
+
+If there are BE and LE versions of a pix_fmt, ignore them and use the short
+native format instead. e.g. 422P16_LE becomes out 422P16. also to note that
+underscores cause parse errors, so 422P16_LE becomes out 422P16LE.
+
+libmpdemux/mp_taglists.c
+--------------
+Sometimes the lavf demuxer will not pass on a fourcc (mostly video game
+formats or other containers that do not support isom/riff tags). You will have
+to make one based on the codec_id listed in the codec source file.
+
+Note that it is a good idea to mark any fourcc you create as
+' ; internal MPlayer FourCC'. In case another codec uses that fourcc,
+you can easily change the internal one. Also this will stop other projects
+from thinking of the internal tag as a real fourcc found in the wild.
+
+libmpdemux/demuxer.c
+--------------
+Some audio codecs require a parser, you can see which ones do
+by reading the parsers section in libavcodec/allcodecs.c.
+
+EOF