What Kind of Compression Format?

[Anhar Miah]

I just caught this:

New breakthrough for data compression?
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-839884.html

And was wondering if this could be used?

RAW is a nice Ideal but in reality compression is a necessity,

Anhar

[Isaac_Brody]

What breakthrough? That article's four years old. And here's the website for that company.

http://www.backseatdriver.com/clients/ZeoSync/docs/index.htm

Looks bogus.

[Anhar Miah]

If it actually works, West Palm Beach, Fla.-based ZeoSync's system could compress files multiple times, making the files up to 100 times smaller than the original, and without losing any data, which is unavoidable with many current compression schemes.

But since the announcement, PhDs and analysts have said, often forcefully, that ZeoSync is wrong. ZeoSync, however, promises that proof -- in the form of demonstrations and products -- will begin to appear soon.

Hmmmm........... Isaac, your right it does seem iffy.

damn can we never have perfect compression (mathematically lossless) !

Anhar

[NoahK]

AFAIK Zeosync went under in 2003 or so.

[Graeme_Nattress]

Totally bullshit. People think of me as someone who writes cool plugins, but my degree was in mathematics, and I'm getting very much up to speed on all manner of compression issues, both lossless and lossy. Anyone who claims:

>3:1 lossless compression on "average" image data
can compress "any" file, including compressed files
a breakthrough in compression that's not been peer reviewed

is, I'm sure to the probability of 2^260199:1 bogus. Bonus points if you get the probability joke.

Graeme

[Michael Mann]

... is, I'm sure to the probability of 2^260199:1 bogus. Bonus points if you get the probability joke.
Graeme

Sorry, I don't get it. But your probability should be less than 1, right?

[Andrew Wharton]

......is, I'm sure to the probability of 2^260199:1 bogus. Bonus points if you get the probability joke.

Graeme

errrr... that is less than 1. I don't get it either, but I'm sure it's just as funny as, "There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary, and those who don't", or something else along those lines.

It's funny if you're a geek.....:)

[Graeme_Nattress]

It's the probability that Arthur and Ford were picked up by the heart of gold. Anyway, you get my meaning. If they claim that stuff, they're most likely wrong by a large margin.

Graeme

[evinsky]

Hot cup'a tea anyone?

Probability dropping to 0.

[im.thatoneguy]

I thought all they were claiming was that they had an incredibly efficient backup solution so that you backup all your data once at full lossless compression using relatively standard aglorithms, and then on subsequent backups, it only backsup bits that change in a smart manner. Which would be very nice for datacenters which need to backup nightly, but really only need to backup the changes in the data, which could be insignificant.

I could be wrong, there were so many compression and backup companies touting their products back then.

[Graeme_Nattress]

If you read it through thoroughly, that's not what they're saying. They're claiming the impossible....

Now for a really strong cup of tea....

[John Allardice]

I seem to remember those odds were also the telephone number of an Islington flat, where Arthur once went to a very good party and met a very nice girl, whom he totally failed to get off with.

[lordnumberzero]

Graeme, do I get geek points?

[Graeme_Nattress]

Geek points all around I think.

For more points, read this website: http://www.endlesscompression.com/ which catalogues outrageous compression claims....

Graeme

[Anhar Miah]

Although I have not had the pleasure of studying Information Entropy as formulised by Shannon[1] [Shannon's information entropy], But I guess its closely to related to thermodynamic entropy which as an engineer I've studied.

Damn it I've been brainstorming all night and I can not think of any thing "new" , I guess you can only push compression so far..


Anhar Hussain Miah


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[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_entropy