lossless compression

1 definition found

lossless compression - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

  Compression \Com*pres"sion\, n. [L. compressio: cf. F.
     compression.]
     1. The act of compressing, or state of being compressed.
        "Compression of thought." --Johnson.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. (Computers) reduction of the space required for storage
        (of binary data) by an algorithm which converts the data
        to a smaller number of bits while preserving the
        information content. The act of compressing [3].
  
     Note: Compression may be lossless compression, in which all
           of the information in the original data is preserved,
           and the original data may be recovered in form
           identical to its original form; or lossy compression,
           in which some of the information in the original data
           is lost, and decompression results in a data form
           slightly different from the original. Lossy compression
            is used, for example, to compress audio or
           video recordings, and sometimes images, where the
           slight differences in the original data and the data
           recovered after lossy compression may be
           imperceptable to the human eye or ear. The JPEG
           format is produced by a lossy compression algorithm.
           [PJC]