Transcoding: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 04:27, 3 March 2005

Revision as of 01:44, 9 March 2005

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'''Transcoding''' is the act of converting digital content from one (usually [[lossy]]) format to another. It involves first decoding/decompressing the original data to a raw intermediate format (ie, [[PCM]] for audio or [[YUV]] for video) that mimics standard playback of the lossy content and then re-encoding this into the target format.

[[Compression artifactsartifact]]s are cumulative, therefore transcoding between lossy [[codec]]s causes a progressive loss of quality with each successive generation. For this reason it is generally discouraged unless unavoidable. For instance, if an individual owns a [[digital audio player]] that does not support a particular format (ie, [[Ogg Vorbis]] and the [[Apple]] [[iPod]]) the only way for the owner to use content encoded in that format is to transcode it to a supported format.