How to Find Out What Audio Codec Is Used
Digital audio has changed the way people listen to music. Digitization of audio makes it portable, sharable and storable. Because it is so modular, though, digital music can come in many different file types. Digital audio is compressed with an audio codec, which allows the file to take up less space and still allows for playback. The only issue is that if you want to play a piece of digital audio your audio programs need to have the correct codecs installed, so they can correctly decode the piece of audio. There are many different kinds of codecs used for digital audio, so you need to find out which you need for a particular file.
Instructions
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1
Locate the audio file you want to find the codec for.
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2
Right-click, or control-click on Macs, on the audio file.
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Choose "Properties" from the drop-down menu that appears. There should be a "File Type" section near the top of the window that appears. There will be a explanation of the file type and an extension that is seperated from the file name by a period, music.mp3, music.ram, etc.
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Copy the extension of the file. In most cases the extension of an audio file is an acronym for the codec. For example the file music.wma uses the Windows Media Audio codec. To find out more information about what extensions check out these two sites: Fileinfo.com and Tech-faq.com.