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Planar Y'UV 4:2:0 (I420)


Video standard. The data format that encodes video into three independent memory blocks to save storage space. Also known as Planar Y'UV 4:2:0, this format stores video data in memory blocks called planes(link takes you to an external page) of luminance (Y) set per pixel and chrominance (U, V) set per four-pixel block.


Planes (Y'UV)

planes-yuv page anchor

The Y'UV(link takes you to an external page) notation defines how each frame stores color. One plane stores brightness data (luma(link takes you to an external page) (Y)) and two planes of color data (chroma(link takes you to an external page) (U, V)). These planes must be presented in this order. The U and V planes get sub-sampled both horizontally and vertically by a factor of two compared to the Y plane. Each sample in this format uses eight bits.


Each two by two block of pixels(link takes you to an external page) registers four brightness levels but the block shares one blue-difference (U) and one red-difference (V) color sample.