What's a codec?

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Okay folks, here's the shimmy: after Christmas I bought myself a sweet-as 8GB Thomson MP3 player. It works great without much fuss, but there's one thing that's got me really confused...

This MP3 can store and play videos, like many, and it came with a disc that has a video converting software, which is fair enough because without this thing the videos wouldn't be playable on it.
Well, whenever I try to convert a video, no matter what it always tells me that it could not find the right codec, and that I must make sure I have the correct codec installed before converting the video file...

WHAT THE HECK IS A CODEC? (lol I maded a rhymez, lol)

Here. Have some links.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codec

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-codec.htm

http://www.free-codecs.com

Enjoy. Sorry that it's not many, I don't seem to be allowed to post more than three links.

codec is like a modem; they aren't real words, but they do a similar job.

MODEM = MOdulator/DEMulator
CODEC = COder/DECoder.

They are in interface in which the data uses to decode properly. Like a translation layer. Ever installed Windows XP and no DVD's will play? It doesn't know how to with out the Decoder part of the codec.

The only form of sound and video that doesn't need codec are those in pure form. WAVe/AVI (although some applications will use AVI but use a way of enCODing the data)