Device or program that encodes/decodes audio data in some bitstream format
An audio codec, or audio decoder is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream (a codec) that encodes or decodes audio.[1][2][3][4] In software, an audio codec is a computer program implementing an algorithm that compresses and decompresses digital audio data according to a given audio file or streaming media audio coding format. The objective of the algorithm is to represent the high-fidelity audio signal with a minimum number of bits while retaining quality. This can effectively reduce the storage space and the bandwidth required for transmission of the stored audio file. Most software codecs are implemented as libraries which interface to one or more multimedia players. Most modern audio compression algorithms are based on modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) coding and linear predictive coding (LPC).
In hardware, audio codec refers to a single device that encodes analog audio as digital signals and decodes digital back into analog. In other words, it contains both an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) running off the same clock signal. This is used in sound cards that support both audio in and out, for instance. Hardware audio codecs send and receive digital data using buses such as AC-Link, I²S, SPI, I²C, etc. Most commonly the digital data is linear PCM, and this is the only format that most codecs support, but some legacy codecs support other formats such as G.711 for telephony.
^"Using codecs". Microsoft. Retrieved 2009-12-21.
^"About.com - Codec". About.com. Archived from the original on 2015-04-05. Retrieved 2009-12-21.
An audiocodec, or audio decoder is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream (a codec) that encodes or decodes...
Lossless AudioCodec (ALAC), also known as Apple Lossless, or Apple Lossless Encoder (ALE), is an audio coding format, and its reference audiocodec implementation...
FLAC (/flæk/; Free Lossless AudioCodec) is an audio coding format for lossless compression of digital audio, developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation, and...
Windows Media Audio (WMA) is a series of audiocodecs and their corresponding audio coding formats developed by Microsoft. It is a proprietary technology...
formats and related codecs. Linear pulse-code modulation (LPCM, generally only described as PCM) is the format for uncompressed audio in media files and...
form using an audio decoder for playback. An example of this is the codecs used in the sound cards of personal computers. A video codec accomplishes the...
the MP2 audiocodec; an upgraded version of the system was later developed and released named DAB+ which uses the HE-AAC v2 (AAC+) audiocodec and is more...
internet Speech AudioCodec (iSAC) is a wideband speech codec, developed by Global IP Solutions (GIPS) (acquired by Google Inc in 2011). It is suitable...
variety of audio coding formats. For listening tests comparing the perceived audio quality of audio formats and codecs, see the article Codec listening...
the audio coding format, the container containing the raw audio data, and an audiocodec. A codec performs the encoding and decoding of the raw audio data...
different codecs designed by different manufacturers. IP audiocodecs are available for wired and wireless broadband IP codec solutions. IP audiocodecs are...
capable of audio compression and decompression to/from a specific audio coding format is called an audiocodec; an example of an audiocodec is LAME, which...
audio processing technology) is a family of proprietary audiocodec compression algorithms owned by Qualcomm, with a heavy emphasis on wireless audio...
unaltered audio content, though with an increased file size compared to lossy compression. Lossless formats include FLAC (Free Lossless AudioCodec), Apple...
codecs may use a higher audio bit depth of 16 bits to encode samples, also resulting in much better voice quality.[citation needed] Wideband codecs have...
PureVoice Audio Video RFC 4175, RTP Payload Format for Uncompressed Video RFC 7587, RTP Payload Format for the Opus Speech and AudioCodec RFC 9134, RTP...
the same bitrate. FLAC (Free Lossless AudioCodec): A lossless compression format that maintains the original audio quality but creates files larger than...
Global Information