Compression

Some files tend to be very big. Music, images and movies in particular can generate huge files.

A photograph can easily be more than 1Mb. A movie can play at 25 frames a second, which might be 25Mb a second.


This can create a storage problem, but more importantly, it leads to long download and upload times when sending them to another computer.

Compression is a way of making files take up less space. But, compressed files have to be descompressed when played back or displayed, which can lead to delays.

There are two mai compression techniques:
- Lossy compression
- Lossless compression

More information: