Bink Video
Video middleware created by RAD Game Tools.
Bink Video is a proprietary file format (extensions .bik and .bk2) for video developed by Epic Games Tools (formerly RAD Game Tools), a part of Epic Games.
Overview
The format includes its own proprietary video and audio compression algorithms (video and audio codecs) supporting resolutions from 320×240 up to high definition video.
It is bundled as part of the Epic Video Tools along with RAD Game Tools' previous video codec, Smacker video. It is a hybrid block-transform and wavelet codec using 16 different encoding techniques. The codec places emphasis on lower decoding requirements over other video codecs with specific optimizations for the different computer game consoles it supports.
It has been primarily used for full-motion video sequences in video games, and has been used in games for Windows, Mac OS and all sixth-generation game consoles (Dreamcast, GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox) and all major seventh-generation gaming platforms (Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Wii and Xbox 360).
The original format was reverse-engineered by the FFmpeg project and Bink decoding is supported by the open-source libavcodec library. The bk2 format is not supported yet.
History
Bink was inducted into the Front Line Awards Hall of Fame by the Game Developer magazine in 2009. The winners for the award were published in the January 2010 issue of the magazine.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Bink Video” is video middleware created by RAD Game Tools. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Bink, Video and middleware, not as a finished interpretation.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q863883. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2009 and 2010.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bink Video” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.