Data Compression

Both analog and digital information can be compressed—made to fit into a smaller bandwidth than it would normally occupy. But compression of digital data works much better—from the perspectives of both quality and efficiency. Essentially, there are two kinds of digital compression: content-based and noncontent-based.

Content-based Compression

Content-based means that the compression scheme understands the content it is working with and adjusts the compression to the special characteristics of the data. The best example, a standards-based approach, is that of the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG). The MPEG standards, the widely used MPEG-1 and the more powerful and currently ascendant MPEG-2, were developed to deal with the ...

Get Essential Guide to Computing: The Story of Information Technology, The now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.