Playing with video format

[mkace]

Hey everyone,

I want to write a simple C library to parse video files; nothing fancy; may be later try writing format conversion routines.

Although I have some programming experience, I am completely new to video programming as such I would much appreciate some help on how to get started. I want to understand a sample file format but I don't know which one to start with, there are so many.

Any pointers and basic tutorials to get started will do.

Should I start somewhere else like image manipulation first? I don't know I am kind of lost. Tried searching google and other programming forums with no luck.

Anyone please bestow some of your wisdom.

[jagabo]

AVI is simplest to start with. The structure is well documented at Microsoft's web site:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa451196.aspx

I would start with an uncompressed RGB file. Knowing the basics of image processing will be a big help.