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What is a codec?
A codec is a little
software
that is used to compress and decompress
files, that is where its name comes from,
and it allows the user to reduce the size of
a multimedia file without reducing its
quality. |
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A codec usually codifies and
decodes signals in order to be able of
playing them in a different format from the
one it had been codified, for example, a
multimedia file that weights around 30 MB
can be compressed and in that way its size
could be reduced up to 3 MB or 4 MB and all
of these without losing its quality while it
is been played.
The most famous codec might be
MP3. We can use
it for another example. A song that under
the MP3 format
occupies 3 or 4 MB’s with a very good
quality, decompressed could occupy 10 times
more than that. The function of the codec is
precisely helping to reduce the size of the
file without losing its quality. Likewise,
to decompress a video / audio we need the
codec with which it was compressed in the
first place, another one would be useless.
This is because each codec has its own way
of compressing, its own algorithms, which
are different in every case. There is a wide
variety of codecs: some improve the quality,
others improve the compression. |
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This is why if we do not have
the adequate codecs there is the possibility
of our system playing the files wrongly, in
order to avoid this to happen we need to be
informed about which ones are the
codecs we
need, this is why we are going to use a
useful method which involves using a
specialized software that will analyze your
PC and will tell you which is the
codec that
you really need or will tell you what
problem you have with the one you already
got. |
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I strongly recommend two
particular codecs which are really easy to
use, the first one is: VIDEOINSPECTO, this
program, besides analyzing our PCs, can also
tell you exactly which codec you need to use
and where to find it, it can be downloaded
from the following link:
http://gratis.portalprogramas.com/VideoInspector.html
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Another program that it recommend is the GSPOT,
it, besides from having the same characteristics than the other
program, has the necessary tools to find the necessary
codec or
the codec you were missing. It can be found in the following web
site: http://gratis.portalprogramas.com/GSpot.html.
We also have to have in mind
that according to the experts, when we
download a codec pack, meaning a pack of all
the codecs, it might slow down our computers
or even cause some conflicts with the codecs
we had already installed, this is why I
would recommend you to download the codecs
one by one, according to your needs, to do
this we have to take into consideration that
we must analyze them with our program and it
will tell us which codec or
codecs we need. |
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The most remarkable video codecs there are,
are the Xvid and the Divx, which can be
downloaded from these web pages:
http://www.free-codecs.com and
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/DivX_Free.htm.
The most outstanding audio codecs are OGG
and AC3, which can be downloaded from these
sites: http://www.xiph.org/dshow/ and
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/AC3_Filter.htm.
But if you do want to install the whole
codec pack, you can
do it from this link:
http://www.free-codecs.com/ or from this
other web site: http://dvd.box.sk
All the installers come with a manual and
some requirements which are really easy to
understand, they also have the multi
language option.
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