CODEC Is Certainly Not A New Language!

You sit down and try to watch a video on your computer and you get a message that the CODEC is not installed. Normally you can find and download the free video CODEC but you’re still confused. You Google for CODEC. “Compression” comes up in a lot of the descriptions. You put two and two together and figure out the CODEC has something to do with the size of the video file. You’re on the right track. (You’ll also be glad to know that video CODEC analysis software like VideoInspector and GSpot will scan video and point you toward the correct CODEC download.)

In the lingo of audio / video, CODEC refers to hardware or software that enables data compression for digital video. We encounter CODECs daily when we play DVDs, watch a video stream on the Internet, or watch our satellite television. With the rising popularity of digital video cameras and DVD burners, more computer users are, by necessity, becoming more conversant with the use of CODECs.

What Considerations Go Into The Design of a CODEC?

Data compression involves converting the output of the camera from RGB (red, green, blue) to YCbCr (or television) color format. Chroma sampling then decorrelates the color signals, separating the luma and chroma signals so that the less perceptually important chroma can be placed at a lower resolution. Some degree of downsampling is then employed and the data quantized to a set pattern of variables.

While video CODEC designs are often standardized, that is really only required for the decoding process. Encoding can be designed to taste as long as then video can then be decoded in the specified manner. Consequently, resulting decoded video quality varies even in the presence of the same video CODEC standard. It is quite common for camera enthusiasts and budding film makers to play with their encoding schemes.

I Keep Seeing “Redundancy.” What Does It Have to Do with CODECs?

Video data is essentially inefficient. Every frame contains spatial and temporal redundancies. One of the functions of a CODEC is to figure out what doesn’t change from frame to frame and leave that data static while only altering the elements that do change, usually the moving parts. If someone is sitting at a desk speaking and there’s a framed photo on the wall behind them, the data that displays that photo – which never moves – does not have to be sent over and over again. Removing redundancy is a way to make video files smaller.

Are All CODECs software based?

Sophisticated videoconferencing equipment handles compression and decompression on its own. For most consumer uses to handle compression, CODEC software is present, often without the user even realizing it is working.

Software

Online free CODECs in software form are common as more and more people are making and distributing their own videos or using free systems for video conferencing. With low-cost webcams, for instance, the software does the real work of encoding and decoding the data stream. Unless you are actively involved in working with video on a daily basis, most of this will be transparent to you.

Software comes bundled with your webcam or digital video camera, which includes the necessary CODECs. You may first become aware of CODECs when your use of videoconferencing or production of digital video becomes sophisticated enough that you move up to better software applications for communication and production. Still, the package you purchase will most likely simply recognize and install the CODECs you require. (If you do run into problems it is not difficult to download the necessary free video codec.)

Hardware

In videoconferencing and streaming media, where more sophisticated hardware is employed, the camera converts analog signals to digital and passes them through a compressor for transmission over a broadband connection. On the other end the receiver rungs the signal through a decompressor for analog display.

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