Codecs sound tediously techy - something only geeks who dream in hexadecimals need care remotely about. But codecs matter to you, me and Joe Mousepad, as I learned the hard way.
For research purposes, I downloaded a video of a sorority twister session but could not play the clip because my operating system is a mutant strain used by only three other wilfully awkward users in Asia. So I clicked on a link that would let me download a codec.
Sandwiched between cobot and cold boot in the digital dictionary, codec stands for compression/decompression. It means an algorithm that, as the translation implies, swings both ways - it both compacts a file or program and, as in my quest, unravels it for viewing.
The most popular file format created and read by codecs must be the MP3, which kindly squishes digital songs to a tenth of their original size. That makes them small enough to swap online, load in droves into iPods and even squeeze into smartphones.
DivX, another immensely popular codec, is even meaner than the dominant musical miser. DivX slashes an already-compressed mpeg2 video by a further four fifths. As a result, the file is less than 1 per cent the size of the original.
So what's the secret? How do codecs manage to impose these instant crash diets?
For video, which scoffs an obscene amount of storage space, codecs take an incoming stream, then compact the signal by ditching duplicate information. There is plenty of fat to trim because a film is just a procession of stills. As a result, unless you have Superman vision, you will probably fail to detect the dip in quality. For sound, codecs shave away extraneous notes that sound similar and run into each other. Consequently, unless you have Batman ears, you will probably fail to notice the trade-off.