Codec

Colour television signals contain a large amount of data and in most cases, this raw data is too large for commonly used transmission or storage systems. The raw data needs to be encoded into a digital data stream which can then be recorded, transmitted or edited. Different manufacturers use different ways of encoding a signal and these methods are known as CODECS. (Short for COder/DECoder or COmpressor/DECompressor).

Different codecs work in different ways but they all have the same aim: to reduce the amount of data required to store the image whilst maintaining as much quality as possible. There's always a trade off between quality and storage space. High quality means large file sizes which means more storage space or bandwidth and faster processors, all of which costs more money.

A codec uses bit depth reduction , chroma subsampling , and compression to reduce the amount of data. When taken together, the effect of these processess is often referred to as the compression ratio

You'll find codecs being used in recording, transmission and editing.