Thread: Making sure you can play your files

Digital data (such as audio and video) needs to be compressed (encoded) before transmission and decompressed (decoded) before playback. The encoding and decoding is done by a program called a 'Codec'. Each media file format requires a codec. VLC media player supports many codecs and hence it can play almost any media file. If you use another media player then it would be a good idea to download and install the K-Lite Codec Pack, which is a library of most codecs.