Codecs, Again?

Digital Video has its very own list of Codecs that help compress videos into manageable sizes।

The term Codec actually stands for code-decode. A Video Codec is a compression tool that encodes and compresses video data so as to make it more manageable-especially for transfer or broadcast over the Internet. Even for storage, raw (uncompressed) digital video can eat up thousands of mega bytes of your hard disk space. Codecs step in and code the video data and make it much smaller.

However, since these tools (mainly just mathematical algorithms) are used on one computer to encode and compress the file, another computer will need the same tool to decode and decompress the encoded video. This is where Codecs lose in terms of functionality. Though there are thousands of Codecs available, you will mostly come across only a few. The popularity of these few have ensured that 99 per cent of the video files you find on the Internet have been encoded using one of the Codecs mentioned here.

Video Codec is made up of both visual and audio components. The audio stream of a video is encoded using an audio Codec, and the video stream using a video Codec. This section only covers video Codecs!

Codecs

Since all Codecs have one common aim, to reduce file size as much as possible without affecting the quality of a video or audio stream, we will only be looking at the ones that work well here. Also, since the size of a video stream is orders of magnitude larger than its audio stream, compression is even more vital a matter for video Codecs.

DivX

DivX is a video compression format that is used to create and distribute multimedia content. Perhaps the most popular of video Codecs, DivX is used by hundreds of millions of users across the globe to either encode or decode compressed video.

The DivX bundle is available for free download, which includes a DivX movie player and the Codecs necessary to decode videos coded using the DivX algorithm. In order to encode video using the DivX algorithm, you have to purchase the DivX encoder. The freely available download of the decoder is available at http://www.divx.com/divx/download/.

XviD

Another popular video Codec today is the XviD Codec. This Codec, unlike DivX, is open source, and all developers are welcome to help with the project. A lot of movies and video clips available on the Internet are encoded using this Codec.

Currently, skilled video and software engineers from across the world are working on improving this Codec. You can download a Windows binary (installer) from http://www.xvidmovies.com/Codec/. If you are looking for the source code for XviD, visit http://www.xvid.org.

3ivX

Available at http://www.3ivx.com, this Codec is also popular online. Their 3ivX Filter suite let’s you create and play MP4 files. The 3ivX Codecs are also used to encode MOV files, both for the MAC as well as Windows platforms.

Avid

This is another popular Codec that is used quite widely for files available on the Internet. It is developed by Avid Technology, and is available at http://www.avid.com.

Windows Media Video 9 Series

Abbreviated as WMV9, this Codec now comes inbuilt with Windows Media Player, and gives you great quality encoding, though you will spend a lot more time encoding a video in this format. However, for making presentations where you need to capture your monitor screen as a video, this Codec is a great help.

You will also find quite a few videos online that use this Codec. Thankfully, there’s no Codec download or installation necessary to play files encoded with this Codec.

You can read more about it at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/Codecs/video.aspx

QuickTime

Apple Computer, the maker of Macintosh computers, is well known for building computers and operating systems with loads of visual appeal. They also have one of the most popular video formats around, especially if it’s movie trailers you want to watch online.

We should mention that QuickTime is not a Codec, but actually a player for playing video in the .mov file format. You can still find many tools to convert MPEG or AVI files to MOV files with smaller file sizes using lossless compression.

If you think that this is a lot of Codecs, and things seem to be getting complicated, you should pay a visit to http://www.fourcc.org/Codecs.php for an even bigger list of hundreds of Codecs, all of which you may come across when working with or viewing video files. There seems to be no limit to the amount of Codecs out there, and we wouldn’t blame you for being overwhelmed by the amount of reading you and downloading you would need to do to get all of these.

Though your media player should automatically download a required Codec when it comes across a video file that uses an unsupported one, this doesn’t always work out as well. As a result, if you are a Windows Media Player user, generally, you end up getting a dialog box that says something to the effect of “Codec not found”. Thankfully, as is usual, others have had the same problems, and found a solution for you.

Codec Packs

You can now get what are called Codec packs from the Internet. These packs contain the most commonly used Codecs for video on the Net, and install them all automatically.

KLite Codec Pack

This is a Codec that was popularised by users of KaZaA Lite, the popular peer-to-peer file sharing application. It contains a pretty impressive list of audio and video Codecs.

KLite Mega Codec Pack

This also includes codes for Real Media files and QuickTime files. It is one of the most comprehensive bundle of Codecs available.

Nimo Codec Pack

This Codec pack was popular until recently, and developers only recently stopped updating it. However, it is still an impressive Codec pack for Windows Media Player 9 and 10 users. A full list of other such Codec packs is available at http://www.free-Codecs.com/Codec_Packs.htm