<p>I am looking for tools to generate video and audio output for my own codecs, in my search I found SDL, EGL, FFmpeg and OpenAL, but it is not clear to me if these APIs serve my purpose which is simply to generate the output, if so when should I use each one?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-08-29T18:43:24.037Z
Do you mean output to the display and speakers of a system, or output to a file? If the former, probably SDL is a good bet as it will let you fill image and audio buffers in realtime and present/play them. For output to a file, if you're interested in using your own codecs inside standard containers like mp4/mkv, then adding codecs to ffmpeg might be useful.
Nathan Reed
CC BY-SA 4.0
2020-08-30T20:42:23.643Z
@NathanReed "output to the display and speakers of a system" That's what interests me, since you mention SDL, what about EGL and OpenAL, are they good alternatives? What I am interested in is having control over what will be shown on the screen and what will sound on the speakers
talC
<pixel-graphics><api>
What APIs are used to output video and audio from a custom codec?
talC
# What APIs are used to output video and audio from a custom codec?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2020-08-28)

I am looking for tools to generate video and audio output for my own codecs, in my search I found SDL, EGL, FFmpeg and OpenAL, but it is not clear to me if these APIs serve my purpose which is simply to generate the output, if so when should I use each one?

**Tags:** pixel-graphics, api

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Do you mean output to the display and speakers of a system, or output to a file? If the former, probably SDL is a good bet as it will let you fill image and audio buffers in realtime and present/play them. For output to a file, if you're interested in using your own codecs inside standard containers like mp4/mkv, then adding codecs to ffmpeg might be useful.  
> **username_0**: @username_1 "output to the display and speakers of a system" That's what interests me, since you mention SDL, what about EGL and OpenAL, are they good alternatives? What I am interested in is having control over what will be shown on the screen and what will sound on the speakers  

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## 0 answers

