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What to do when a video doesn’t openĪt this point, it should be clear that a video won’t play if we’re missing one of the necessary codecs. We should mention that the name “codec” is a portmanteau of the words compressor and decompressor. The codec decompresses each stream so that our computer can read it. Respectively, during playback, the process is reversed. During a video’s encoding, codecs are supposed to compress each stream before the encoder places them inside the container. Naturally, that's done by using the appropriate decompressor.Ĭodecs are essentially small programs, whose job is to perform those two tasks. If a video remains uncompressed, a file only a few minutes long would take up dozens of Gigabytes in our hard disc.Īfter the splitter separates the streams, the file will have to be decompressed. To create a video or audio stream, we have to compress it following a coding standard in other words, a compressor. Now let’s see how codecs work in this process. Then, our computer searches for the corresponding splitter that can get the job done. In our case, a splitter is a program whose job is to split a container into its files.ĭuring playback, the player detects the container of our file. This has nothing to do with the network related splitter we might be familiar with. To do this right, we need the appropriate splitter. In short, it has to split a container into its fundamental parts, aka the streams. Splitterįor a computer to be capable of playing those files, it has to work backward.

Some of the most popular containers are Matroska (MKV), AVI, MP4, and Flash Video (FLV). Depending on the container used, we end up with one of several familiar filename extensions. The container determines the final video file format. It is essentially a “vessel” - hence the name “container” - which has all of our streams in it.