Supported Formats

Symphonia supports a wide range of audio container formats through dedicated demuxer implementations. Each format is provided by a separate crate and can be enabled using feature flags.

Feature Flags

By default, Symphonia only enables royalty-free open standard formats. Additional formats can be enabled using feature flags in your Cargo.toml:

symphonia = { version = "0.5", features = ["isomp4", "aiff"] }

All formats can be enabled at once with the all-formats feature flag.

The following table shows all supported container formats, their development status, gapless playback support, and associated feature flags: | Format | Status | Gapless* | Feature Flag | Default | Crate | |----------|-----------|----------|--------------|---------|-----------------------------|| | AIFF | Great | Yes | aiff | No | symphonia-format-riff | | CAF | Good | No | caf | No | symphonia-format-caf | | ISO/MP4 | Great | No | isomp4 | No | symphonia-format-isomp4 | | MKV/WebM | Good | No | mkv | Yes | symphonia-format-mkv | | OGG | Great | Yes | ogg | Yes | symphonia-format-ogg | | Wave | Excellent | Yes | wav | Yes | symphonia-format-riff | * Gapless playback requires support from both the demuxer and decoder.

Status Classifications

Excellent

All media streams play. No audible or inaudible glitches. All required features are supported.This status is only assigned after passing all compliance tests, or if Symphonia’s output matches a reference implementation over a large test corpus.

Great

Most media streams play. Inaudible glitches may be present. Most common features are supported.This status indicates that major development is complete and the feature is acceptable for most applications.

Good

Many media streams play. Some streams may panic, error, or produce audible glitches. Some features may not be supported.This status indicates active development or known limitations.

Format Details

AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format)

Status: Great
Gapless: Yes
Crate: symphonia-format-riff
Common file extensions: .aiff, .aif
Widely used on Apple platforms
Supports uncompressed PCM and compressed audio

CAF (Core Audio Format)

Status: Good
Gapless: No
Crate: symphonia-format-caf
Common file extension: .caf
Apple’s modern container format
Designed to overcome limitations of older formats

ISO/MP4

Status: Great
Gapless: No
Crate: symphonia-format-isomp4
Common file extensions: .mp4, .m4a, .m4b, .m4p
Industry standard for AAC audio
Based on ISO Base Media File Format

MKV/WebM

Status: Good
Gapless: No
Crate: symphonia-format-mkv
Common file extensions: .mkv, .mka, .webm
Flexible, open-source container format
Enabled by default

OGG

Status: Great
Gapless: Yes
Crate: symphonia-format-ogg
Common file extensions: .ogg, .oga
Free, open container format
Commonly used with Vorbis and Opus codecs
Enabled by default

Wave (WAV)

Status: Excellent
Gapless: Yes
Crate: symphonia-format-riff
Common file extensions: .wav, .wave
Microsoft/IBM audio format
Most commonly contains uncompressed PCM
Enabled by default

Gapless Playback

Gapless playback eliminates silence or gaps between tracks during continuous playback. This feature requires support from both the container format (demuxer) and the audio codec (decoder). Formats with gapless support:

AIFF (with compatible codecs)
OGG (with Vorbis, Opus)
Wave (with compatible codecs)

Even if a format supports gapless playback, the codec must also support it. See Supported Codecs for codec-specific gapless support.

Usage Example

use symphonia::core::formats::FormatOptions;
use symphonia::core::io::MediaSourceStream;
use symphonia::core::meta::MetadataOptions;
use symphonia::core::probe::Hint;
use std::fs::File;

// Open a media file
let file = Box::new(File::open("audio.mp4")?);\nlet mss = MediaSourceStream::new(file, Default::default());

// Create a hint with the file extension
let mut hint = Hint::new();
hint.with_extension("mp4");

// Probe the format
let probed = symphonia::default::get_probe()
    .format(&hint, mss, &FormatOptions::default(), &MetadataOptions::default())?;

let mut format = probed.format;

For more examples, see the Examples page.

Get Started

Core Concepts

Guides

Resources

Supported Formats

Feature Flags