Someone help me explain transcoding to my friend.

[LeJosh]

I've tried explaining to my friend that transcoding is a digital-to-digital process where a (dvd file for example) is changed from whatever it was to mkv or h.264 but he doesn't seem to want to get that.

All I understand is that it keeps the same bit rate but it lets change the resolution to 1920x1080 for example from 640x480... plus it makes the file useable on a PC.

 

[LeJosh]

transcoding is just taking an encoded piece of data and 'changing' the encoding.

alternately 'transforming the encoding'

doing what you suggested above is resizing, and may not nessacary involve transcoding.

also, mkv is a container and h264 is a codec.

My knowledge on it is somewhat limited too.

Edit - Also, this may be a silly question, but can transcoding improve the quality of a DVD at all?