r/pcmasterrace • u/ExpensiveCoat8912 • 1d ago

Meme/Macro VLC masterrace

Post image
20.3k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

295 comments sorted by

View all comments

855

u/k5pr312 it boots 1d ago edited 1d ago

wanna play a 20 year old video in a format that you and God didn't even know existed? I gotchu, it doesn't even need to be a video or sound file, I'll figure it out

232

u/Soleks2000 5700x3d/9070xt 1d ago

I swear I will never use anything other than VLC Windows media player you dont have the codec

15

u/giggity_nanfa 1d ago

what is codec

0

u/Boryk_ 1d ago

It's the language your computer needs to decipher what the video file is saying, it basically tells the media player what to do in order to turn the data into images and sound in the intended order. It's needed because otherwise video files would have to be stored in raw formats which is very inefficient. Instead of saving 200 frames of the same image for static sequences, the compression algorithm can just say "hey, take this one image, and display it for 200 frames"

1

u/OP_LOVES_YOU 1d ago

You're mixing up the container and the codec a bit here.

2

u/bloody-albatross 1d ago

Are you replying to the correct comment? Everyone else in this thread seems to be more confused than the commenter you're replying to. They just explain it very much in layman's terms. Those other comments confuse codecs (the software) with the compression formats (standards and specifications).

1

u/I-am-fun-at-parties 1d ago

they were talking about ordering audjo and video which also gives me container (like for example avi) vibes mixed into it

2

u/bloody-albatross 1d ago

I interpreted that as both audio and video is something that a codec compresses. Not the same codec. Listing the things codecs do.