The two files on the left are exactly the same – except one is stored on a Synology server and the other is stored on the internal hard disk of my Mac. In the screen shot above, you see three files with their media information displayed in the Finder. There are hundreds of codecs, each designed for different tasks.Īs I was writing this article I discovered something interesting.
Short for “Compressor/Decompressor”, common codecs include MP3, WAV, JPEG, PNG, H.264 and ProRes. These are the mathematics that convert light and sound into binary ones and zeros that allow us to store and playback images and sounds on our computer. In this article, I’ll show you how to determine your media codecs using:ĬODEC: ALL media uses codecs.
NOTE: Here’s the Apple KnowledgeBase article describing what’s happening. With Apple discontinuing support for many popular media codecs in the next release (after Mojave) of the macOS, it is more important than ever to determine what codecs your media uses.
