What is a MP4 Codec?

Why is a MP4 Codec needed: MP4 is the revolutionary new way to distribute music and videos over the internet. Previously, MP3 was the wonder technology, the universal format used for multimedia distribution. But the way in which multimedia capacities and bandwidth have increased over the past few years, no one seems to be satisfied with mere audio any more. MP4 is the newest technology that enables you to send and receive video information over the internet.

Video data is even more bandwidth-intensive than audio data. Uncompressed video data of the highest quality (DVD quality, for instance) would take hours and hours to transmit over even a fairly fast connection, if it were in the raw or uncompressed form. Suppose you want to share a short videocam recording with your family. You'd like the file to be small enough that you can send it as an attachment with an email. Or suppose you want to download a movie from an online store, and wouldn't want to spend the rest of the week getting only the credit title sequence. In short, what you need is compressed video. And MP4 codecs provide the technology to give you that.

What are codecs? A codec is the actual program that encodes the raw data into compressed data, and also translates it back to visual impulses when you actually watch the movie. In order to encode raw video (the sort that you download from your handycam to your computer) into a high-quality but compressed file, you need to have the right codec installed on your machine. Similarly, you'll also need it if you want to watch the compressed movie. That is what a codec does – it encodes and decodes. And that is where its name comes from.

A movie codec is nothing new. Most of the video that you see on your computer is encoded in some form or other. But in order to enjoy life-like video and still keep the file size within decent limits, the codec has to be very, very good. And that is where MP4 delivers. The MP4 codec can give you DVD-quality video, but the file size will still be so small that you can normally fit several movies onto a lightweight portable MP4 player that you can carry with you anywhere you go.