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Thread ID: 78349 2007-04-12 03:51:00 WINRAR v WINZIP SurferJoe46 (51) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
540348 2007-04-12 06:49:00 Why has nobody mentioned 7zip?

7zip is pretty good too.
Dannz (1668)
540349 2007-04-12 06:51:00 The compression achieved by a utility depends on the input file. What compression does is remove redundancy. Compressing a compresed file can have unpredictable results, including enlarging the file. (PKZip long ago ws capable of knowing that no compression could be achieved, and doing nothing except tagging the output file accordingly.)

We went through all the "my favourite compression is better than yours" arguments in the late 1970s and early 80s. There were dozens available. Phil Karn's PKZip seems to have lasted better than most.

It's a waste of time to argue about them and run tests on them. Any one will do, as long as a recipient has the capability of unpacking the file. That was the problem of the "new better" compressions ... finding the damn software to unpack a file. :)
Graham L (2)
540350 2007-04-12 07:59:00 Could it be from the high bitrate?

I used 960 Kbps for that MP3.
SurferJoe46 (51)
540351 2007-04-12 08:04:00 And played for 15 seconds? Graham L (2)
540352 2007-04-12 11:42:00 Whoa!!! That means WinRAR reduced that file by close to 284 times. Would also like to see a screenshot. beeswax34 (63)
540353 2007-04-12 12:42:00 the amount you can compress varies..
you have to look at what you're compressing
and some compressors can do better than others when compressing certain files

eg. if you try to compress a big big mp3 or jpg you won't get far
and probably won't vary way too much between different compressors
but if you try to compress a big txt file then you can shrink it a lot

or if you want to compress a file full with zero's then you're in luck~
if you don't believe me go download a 5kb file here that extracts to 6Gb
pearpc.sourceforge.net
get the blank disk images and extract and amaze yourselves...


if i'm desperate to shrink a file down
i try zip rar and 7zip and see which one wins :D
normally it's a battle between rar and 7zip really
but i find it weird how sometimes there can be a great difference in final filesize
sometimes rar can compress more and sometimes 7zip can..
still haven't figured out a rule telling me which one to use when i'm faced with what files...
heni72847 (1166)
540354 2007-04-12 13:34:00 WinRAR

its superior and its a crime to suggest it isnt. WinRAR is by far the best compression utility on the market. I have actually seen i t compress a 700MB ISO to 2.47MB

Yep, superior

Amazing. Must have been a strange ISO file to compress that much...

Anyways I like WinRAR best too, but WinUHA has better compression than both RAR and ZIP
Agent_24 (57)
540355 2007-04-12 23:51:00 This debate seems to be more RAR vs. PKZIP formats rather than the utilities themselves. As already said by several others, MP3 files are already highly compressed using an audio-aware, lossy algorithm so they should not be compressed again - all you will do is add the overheads of the compression format.

You will get different results for different types of workloads. You could try compressing files such as binary Word documents (not the newer XML), HTML files, or uncompressed WAV audio.

Audio example (extremely compressible frog calls):

Original WAV File: www.umesc.usgs.gov

Original: 2500 KB

PKZIP: 1993 KB
GZIP: 1993 KB
BZIP2: 1494 KB
FLAC: 1020 KB (Lossless audio codec)
MP3: 454 KB (lossy, bit rate 128 KB/s)
OGG Vorbis: 250 KB (lossy, quality "4" - average bit rate 70 KB/s)

FLAC is an audio codec which can perfectly reproduce the original audio (like the general compression formats do). Both MP3 and Vorbis actually discard information during compression and produce only an output that sounds the same to the human ear as the original, not the original audio itself. For both of the lossy codecs I was unable to hear the difference in sound quality. Vorbis is a more modern codec and produces a better audible quality for any given bit rate than MP3.

I can't test RAR as I don't have a decent encoder. I would be interested to see other people's sizes for compressing this file.
TGoddard (7263)
540356 2007-04-13 00:07:00 Just tried RAR and UHA with that same file (both on highest compression):

RAR - 1404KB
UHA - 1253KB

As you can see, RAR is good but UHA is better.
Agent_24 (57)
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