What is ConvertToYV12?

[ultraman36]

Hey im using megui and following a guide. I see some people put ConvertToYV12 in their script. I cant seem to find a definition of what it is and what it does. It seems it has something to do with the color space. How does it help? Is it needed for converting say hd dvd evo files? Thanks for any info

[jagabo]

Most high compression codecs use YV12 internally. The colorspace used is YUV. The luma (grayscale, Y) portion of the image is the full resolution of the video. The chroma (color, U and V) components are half (both dimensions) the resolution of the video. So a 720x480 video in YV12 has a 720x480 luma channel and two 360x240 chroma channels.

http://www.fourcc.org/yuv.php
http://www.fourcc.org/yuv.php#YV12

Whether you need, or want, to ConvertToYV12() depends on what the encoder accepts or works best/fastest with.