The RAD Video Tools are a set of utilities for processing video, animation, and sound data. They feature both of our video codecs: Bink Video, our latest 24-bit true-color codec, and Smacker, our 8-bit 256-color codec.

Bink Video is a “better-than-DVD” video codec. That is, it compresses better than DVD at up to three times the playback speed! Bink is a hybrid block-transform and wavelet codec that can encode your video using 16 different compression techniques (wavelet, DCT, motion compensation, a variety of vector quantizers, Smacker-style, and more). With all of these techniques in one codec, Bink can handle pretty much any type of video. It also has a psycho-acoustic based audio codec that is capable of 8 to 1 perceptually lossless compression, so your audio will sound as good as your video looks!

Smacker is our 256-color compressor for video and animation. It has used in all aspects of multimedia application design: cinematics, cut-scenes, video-sprites, transparent videos, single-image decompression, scrolling video backgrounds, and more. Smacker has been used in over 2,000 games because it’s fast, it’s easy-to-license, it has a terrific SDK, and its video quality is unrivaled in 256 color mode.