How do programs convert a file from one format to another?
The answer probably extremely varied so I’m sorry if im asking too broad a question.
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Converting an file from OGG, which i honestly didnt really know existed, into MP3 takes seconds, but somehow in that time it changes the data around, and now it’s in MP3 format my editing program can use it.
There’s got to be more going on than just changing the suffix!
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How does this work?
In: 1
For the most part, a filetype is just an instruction on how to read a file. A .txt file and .csv file have little to tell them apart from each other, for example, but they are usually used by different programs.
Of course, it’s a little more complicated than that for most filetypes, since the data in the file needs to be in a specific format for the given/assumed instructions to work. A jpg file, for example, will have a different way of reconstructing an image than a bmp file.
But overall, the principle is the same. Read the file using extension 1’s protocol, “understand” it (depends on image/voice/etc.) rewrite it using extension 2’s protocol. How long that takes depends on the two types and file size.
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