We use compressed data every day, whether it be music files (MP3), images (JPEG), video (MPEG-4) or mass-archive storage (ZIP). It is fascinating to watch a large amount of disk space get scrunched into a handy, tiny file. But how does this process of squeezing work?
In this three-part article, we will take you through some of the basics of data compression.
What makes our data susceptible to compression? Why cant data be compressed indefinitely?
Why do we need to compress files? Why do some files take up so much space?
How does data get compressed? What does the compressor do that reduces size?