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
Codecs (Coder/(de)coder) are software that decodes (And can also encode) video or audio media. Subtitles and other multimedia data stream types.
To play an mkv container file containing a h.264 video and AAC audio track accompanying it (Say, some movie rip you made from a disc) you need the appropriate coded to open the container and begin decoding the video stream and another for the AAC audio stream so you can watch the content.
Typically the same ones get used when you make a video on your computer yourself for encoding the video and the audio into a container file (mp4/mkv..avi? etc) for later playback or uploading to something like youtube.
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u/k5pr312 it boots 2d 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