What is a codec?

Codecs are system programs that are used to create and play audio and video files. The name “codec” (which comes from two words “encoder” and “decoder” (COder + DECoder = CODEC)) says it all.

Why do we need codecs?

The point is that sound or video presented digitally, without any processing, have very large volumes. That is why codecs are used, which allow to significantly reduce the size of multimedia files.

File Compression

The process of compressing information is encoding, “decompressing” it is decoding. To put it simply, a file created by a codec is a kind of archive file. Hence another variant of origin of the word “codec” – from the words “COmpressor” and “DECompressor”.

There are two main ways of coding – compression of original information with and without losses. The first way provides a significant reduction in data size while maintaining acceptable audio and image quality.

Most popular video formats on the Internet, as well as the popular audio format MP3 use lossy compression algorithms, when information that is unnoticeable to the viewer or listener is simply not encoded. The disadvantage of this method is a noticeable, especially by experts, quality deterioration and significant degradation of quality when recompressing such files repeatedly.

Lossless compression is mainly used in professional video recording and high-quality audio formats. In this case, the original information is reconstructed from the compressed file without losses. However, files with this compression method get larger in size.

Note also that the codec itself can not play or create files. This requires a player, editor or converter of audio or video files, which use the necessary codecs in their work.

How do I install codecs on my computer?

A “clean”, freshly installed operating system already contains some minimal set of codecs. But nowadays there are many file formats for which this set will not be sufficient.

Codecs can be installed on your computer individually or as packages, which in addition to a set of codecs often contain various tools to facilitate working with audio and video files, as well as players.

The most common and popular examples of a combination of codecs and media player are: K-Lite Codec Pack, KMPlayer, AIMP, which can be downloaded from our website for free. Most often users install one of these players depending on personal preference, be it design or convenience, and that is enough, since all of these players contain a large number of the most popular and used codecs used to play audio and video files.

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