Can't Tell The Difference Between Lossy And Lossless - Page 3

• JPEG (or JPG, for the file extension; Joint Photographic Experts Group)
• PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
• BMP (Bitmap)
• GIF (Graphics Interchange Format)
• TIFF (or TIF, for the file extension; Tagged Image File Format)

Image formats can be separated into three broad categories: lossy and lossless compression formats, and uncompressed formats.

Uncompressed formats take up the most amount of data, but they are exact representations of the image. Bitmap formats such as BMP genenrally are uncomressed, although there also are compressed BMP files as well.

Lossy compression formats are generally suited for photographs. It is not suited for illustrations, drawings and text, as compression artifacts from compressing the image will standout. Lossy compression, as its name implies, does not encode all the information of the file, so when it is recovered into an image, it will not be an exact representation of the original. However, it is able to compress images very effectively compared to lossless formats, as it discards certain information. A prime example of a lossy compression format is JPEG.

Lossless compression formats are suited for illustrations, drawings, text and other material that would not look good when compressed with lossy compression. As the name implies, lossless compression will encode all the information from the original, so when the image is decompressed, it will be an exact representation of the original. As there is no loss of information in lossless compression, it is not able to achieve as high a compression as lossy compression, in most cases. Examples of lossless image compression is PNG and GIF. (GIF only allows 8-bit images.)

TIFF and BMP are both "wrapper" formats, as the data inside can depend upon the compression technique that is used. It can contain both compressed and uncomressed images.

When to use a certain image compression format really depends on what is being compressed.

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 [url=http://www.kingofgames.net/ben-10-games] Ben 10 Games [/url]   

Yes, you're quite right, the audio codecs FLAC and SHN, along with the less used APE are all compressed just like MP3. However there is a BIG difference between them. Where as MP3 compresses files in a lossy way, removing audio data FOREVER, these don't.

They are compressed in a lossless way. When a WAV is compressed to FLAC, no data is actually discarded permanently like MP3, it is done in a way simply to squash the file down to be then decompressed.

If you decompress FLAC, SHN or APE back to WAV or AIFF, the resulting file, unlike the MP3, will be IDENTICAL in size and quality to the original WAV or AIFF that you compressed in the first place. Therefore these are deemed LOSSLESS.

The advantage of these formats is that they can cut the size of the WAV significantly, making it a lot quicker to download, and taking up less space on you Hard Drive.

So, why shouldn't I trade and collect live recordings in MP3?

Is it not already obvious to you? Well if it isn't I'll put it in nice simple terms:

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHY YOU SHOULD TRADE AND COLLECT SHOWS IN MP3.
IT IS AN INFERIOR FORMAT AND SHOULD BE AVOIDED.


Think about it. You go to the trouble of buying some CD-R's to burn your shows to, you find a show you want and then a trader who has it. You go to all that trouble then find he has an MP3 copy of the show. Why trade them for it? You can most likely download the mp3 version from the Internet like they did. Why go to the trouble of trading through the mail for something you can get in a much easier way.

But why would you want an MP3 version anyway? As I've said in this guide it is an inferior format and should be avoided. Look for a lossless version of it.

Also, you should never convert a show you've got in lossless format to MP3. There are already LOTS of live shows circulating in MP3 because people have converted the lossless recordings. If you MUST convert it to MP3 to put on your I-Pod or whatever, keep it for yourself, don't trade it, or put it up for download. People go to the trouble of recording shows for you, and they specifically ask that it isn't converted to MP3. Please respect their wishes.

_________________________________________________________________

 [url=http://www.kingofgames.net/ben-10-games] Ben 10 Games [/url]   

Yes, you're quite right, the audio codecs FLAC and SHN, along with the less used APE are all compressed just like MP3. However there is a BIG difference between them. Where as MP3 compresses files in a lossy way, removing audio data FOREVER, these don't.

They are compressed in a lossless way. When a WAV is compressed to FLAC, no data is actually discarded permanently like MP3, it is done in a way simply to squash the file down to be then decompressed.

If you decompress FLAC, SHN or APE back to WAV or AIFF, the resulting file, unlike the MP3, will be IDENTICAL in size and quality to the original WAV or AIFF that you compressed in the first place. Therefore these are deemed LOSSLESS.

The advantage of these formats is that they can cut the size of the WAV significantly, making it a lot quicker to download, and taking up less space on you Hard Drive.

So, why shouldn't I trade and collect live recordings in MP3?

Is it not already obvious to you? Well if it isn't I'll put it in nice simple terms:

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHY YOU SHOULD TRADE AND COLLECT SHOWS IN MP3.
IT IS AN INFERIOR FORMAT AND SHOULD BE AVOIDED.


Think about it. You go to the trouble of buying some CD-R's to burn your shows to, you find a show you want and then a trader who has it. You go to all that trouble then find he has an MP3 copy of the show. Why trade them for it? You can most likely download the mp3 version from the Internet like they did. Why go to the trouble of trading through the mail for something you can get in a much easier way.

But why would you want an MP3 version anyway? As I've said in this guide it is an inferior format and should be avoided. Look for a lossless version of it.

Also, you should never convert a show you've got in lossless format to MP3. There are already LOTS of live shows circulating in MP3 because people have converted the lossless recordings. If you MUST convert it to MP3 to put on your I-Pod or whatever, keep it for yourself, don't trade it, or put it up for download. People go to the trouble of recording shows for you, and they specifically ask that it isn't converted to MP3. Please respect their wishes.

_______________________________________________________

 [url=http://www.kingofgames.net/ben-10-games] Ben 10 Games [/url]   

I certainly can't tell the difference, unless one of the two was poorly encoded or there is an amplitude difference.

That said, I still use FLAC.

Couldn't tell the difference myself, but I prefer ripping in lossless just so it can be as accurate as possible (in case I get magic ears ).  Neurotic?  100%.

One thing I've been meaning to do, is whenever I get my hands on CD's, I will rip them using lossless on my computer as a backup, but when I load them onto my iPod, I will load them on as 320kbps.

I haven't gotten around to doing that yet, and have been just loading the lossless files onto my iPod, because it's 64Gigs, and it's only about half full at the moment. 

I'm not capable to distinguishing 128kbps mp3 and 16/44 FLAC, but i still listen to my music in FLAC because the placebo effect is just very comforting.