[MPlayer-DOCS] CVS: main/DOCS/xml/en mencoder.xml,1.39,1.40

[Diego Biurrun]

On Fri, Apr 01, 2005 at 10:46:41AM -0800, Loren Merritt wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Apr 2005, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> >
> >The distinction is between a container and a _codec_.  Please don't use
> >the word format, it's overloaded.
> 
> But it's not a "codec" either. A codec is software. I don't know a good 
> precise term for this; maybe "video compression standard", except that 
> it's not necessarily standardized...

Strictly speaking, yes.  However, I think a slightly more loose usage of
the term is common and people speak of files containing codec X and Y.

I was imprecise above, but my main point was just the distinction
between container formats and the formats of the audio and video streams
(which you could call codecs) enclosed in a container.  This distinction
is not understood by many people.  Thankfully, everybody on this mailing
list does know the difference after all :)

Diego