|
It's Getting Harder to Watch Movies
|
By Jim Hoffman
[Hits: 10015]
|
|
After a long, exhausting day you came home, had your dinner andthen sat in front of the TV looking for a nice relaxing movie.Nothing! Then suddenly you remembered that you bought the CD ofthe new, Oscar-winning movie "Million Dollar Baby". You took outyour laptop, inserted the first CD and hit "play". To yoursurprise, the only thing you could see was a green screen. Youtook out the CD, cursing at the media market that gave you a"broken" CD for the fifth time. Tried the second CD; again thefrustrating green screen. First thing in the morning, you tookyour "broken" movies and went to the shop. Having yelled at theowner of the shop for five minutes, you suddenly noticed thecynical smile on the guy's face. Having the opportunity to talk,the shop keeper said "CODEX".
All you needed were the codecs for these movies. They were notbroken; they were just coded in a "foreign" language to yourmedia player. The codecs were the dictionary that your laptophad to use to translate the absurd computer language to the nicescenes of the movies.
Every video, audio, picture or even word document files arecoded in a different way. In the case of big data entries likemovies, the computer has to use different algorithms to compressthe data so that the size does not exceed the standard limits.We see this compression in PDF files (Acrobat Reader), in MP3files (WinAMP), in MPEG files (movies), in each and every datastorage file that you can imagine. While the compression isbeing done, the programs use some kind of a dictionary. Withoutthese "dictionaries" (codecs in the case of video and audiofiles) the code would seem as meaningless to the player or theviewer as it is to you. So you have to install certain codecs tobe able to use certain files.
Some codecs replace the repetitive symbols over the file, omecodecs changes the aspect ratio of the movie; some of themdecrease the quality of the picture and yet, all of them turngigabytes of data into fair size that can fit into a CD or aDVD.
As the user demands increases, codecs are multiplying in alogarithmic scale. There are several codecs that are musts formovie fans, however. You should install most of these if youdon't want to be disappointed.
1. MPEG4 - It is the default codec which is already included inWMP. 2. DIVX - A series of sound and display codex which comewith shareware DIVX player. 3. XVID - Relatively new, one of themost used video codecs. 4. AC3 - Most common sound codec. 5.Intel Indeo - Rather useful series of codec which a new versionpops out everyday.
Overall the way movies are encoded is changing day by day.Everyday we see a new aspect ratio. Everyday we encounter a newcodec. To many, it would seem that it is getting harder and hardto watch movies. The least you can do is to download a codecviewer program which would help you on your quest for a pleasantevening.
|
|
|
|
|
|
