Two versions of the codec in use are Indeo 3.2 and Indeo Interactive. As with Indeo, Cinepak also offers very good image quality. Cinepak is a vector quantization based codec. Vector quantization stores information about differences between frames of video by quantifying the magnitude and direction of a pixel's movement. It is a highly asymmetric codec, taking 300 times longer to compress than decompress.
Decompression is highly efficient.
General opinion is that Cinepak is better than Indeo 3.2 for high action sequences. Both compression and decompression are performed in software. It is a simple codec based on run length encoding and optimised for animation or cartoons. AVI and Quicktime files can be played back in software alone and because of this the speed of playback and the size of the video window will depend on the power of the processor and graphic capability of the machine. The video will be scaled accordingly.