Learn about data security, encryption, hashing and encoding in our knowledge base.
Encoding is the process of converting data from one representation to another, typically for the purpose of efficient transmission or storage. Encoding is used in a variety of applications, including communication, data storage, and data compression.
There are many different types of encoding, including:
Character encoding: A method of representing characters (letters, numbers, and symbols) as a series of bits or bytes. Character encoding is used to represent text in computers and is necessary for storing and transmitting text in a machine-readable form. Examples of character encoding include ASCII, Unicode, and UTF-8.
Image encoding: A method of representing images as a series of bits or bytes. Image encoding is used to store and transmit images in a machine-readable form and is used in a variety of applications, including digital photography and online image sharing. Examples of image encoding include JPEG, PNG, and GIF.
Video encoding: A method of representing video as a series of bits or bytes. Video encoding is used to store and transmit video in a machine-readable form and is used in a variety of applications, including online video streaming and video on demand. Examples of video encoding include H.264, H.265, and VP9.
Encoding is often used in conjunction with compression, which is a method of reducing the size of data by removing redundancy or irrelevance. Compression can be lossless, meaning that the original data can be exactly reconstructed from the compressed data, or lossy, meaning that some information is lost during the compression process.