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Wikipedia's List of codecs page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_codecs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_codecs) is a good example of the explosion o
by robenkleene 6y ago
Wikipedia's List of codecs page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_codecs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_codecs) is a good example of the explosion of complexity that arises when representing media digitally.
To this day, this complexity is still mostly offloaded to users in the form of export settings, and supported playback formats. One basic requirement of the technology reaching the point good media support is if a user never encounters codecs, in either export settings or playback problems.
- koonsolo 6y agoMy kids have no idea what a codec is. Still they record and play videos and audio messages all the time. I don't know in which world or time you are living, it's been a long time since I touch anything related to codecs.
- robenkleene 6y agoThis is a fair point, there's a lot you can get away without worrying about the complexity today, and that amount is certainly steadily growing (which is great!). But particularly on the creation side, if you say, try and combine a vector created in one program with a bitmap created in another, you'll likely encounter some issues (e.g., color profiles), or taking an animation created in one program and overlaying it over a video in another, you'll often need to know your codecs. Or exporting a video optimized for social media, e.g., videos shared on Instagram and Twitter often have heavy compression artifacts. I'm really looking for seamless creation and sharing freely combining media from different programs, with the same ease as cut, pasting, and editing text. (As well as interfaces that are as easy to use as manipulating pen and paper with your hands.)