I wonder why music and video is not off-topic for Hydrogenaudio (11 new forums) but normal loseless compression is Off-Topic (not even one forum or subforum).

I suggested few months ago making new forum or subforum for discussion about loseless compression like 7-zip, zip, rar, bz2 etc. but ppl said "It`s Off-Topic"!!!

So please give me answer why loseless compression is less on-topic than video compression - for Hydrogenaudio?

Ok, so JohnV, Dibrom, please tell me - are You planning adding one forum/subforum? If not - why not?

Listen up Samus, aren't 7-zip, zip, rar and maybe bz2 (wtf that is) FILE compression formats, not AUDIO compression formats??? Monkeys Audio, FLACC, WAV are lossless compression formats and I do believe "we" have forums for that kind of stuff.

Anyway, what is there to discuss about general compression formats?

"Wee, I got this file to compress better on RAR than on 7z"

"yes, but if you use kilometer-long overkill command line on 7z, you might end up compressing better"

"You n00bs, UHarc rulz"

If you are having a lousy day, read a post by Roberto.
It will cheer you up!

To answer the question, it's bzip2, which is increasingly popular in Linux and will probably gradually replace gzip for lots of things (though probably not completely - it's a bit on the slow side for compression and gzip is "the standard.") It is a very good compressor based on zlib (same library as used by PNG), and is espescially outstanding at compressing text files, source code and the like.

And video compression formats are also "not AUDIO compression formats". Music section also is not about audio comprssion, but about music in general (so why compression in general is bad, music in general is good?)

bz2 - should be bzip2

@Roberto
We have forum:
"MPEG4 Basic Usage
MPEG4 Basic Usage discussion. How to create MPEG4 video or audio/video -streams. How to use GordianKnot, VirtualDub etc." and "General A/V
Discussion of general A/V topics and topics not covered by other forums."

Hmm, also "kilometer-long overkill command line", also "hey, Divx 111.0 is better than Xvid 123.34!!!" and ""You n00bs, latest DIVX rulz""

Erm? Zlib is Gzip, man.

bzip2's compression is based on BWT compression, not LZ77.

Hmmmm... dense, are we?

At least, there might come fruitful information from discussing the quality differences between DivX and XviD. But what is fruitful from discussing compressors? One compresses better than the other on a specific data set, and that's it. You don't do blind tests on compressors, you don't suggest quality improvements to the developers, you don't discuss tagging or ripping...

It's as tedious as a topic can get.


Since you want so badly to lobby on a topic of your interest, why don't you take the oportunity and lobby for a Jabber forum too?

Cobra: you suggested a general compression formats forum... the admins said no to it. They are in charge of this forum and have every right to deny your suggestion. You don't have the right to complain now, just because an A/V section was created. You have this forum as a privilege, not as a right.

And, in my opinion, A/V IS much less offtopic to audio compression than general compression formats. But that's not the point. The point is that you cannot demand what you're demanding now, especially in the way you're doing it... Express your opinions about the new forums only. Don't drag them into your agenda.

cya

Where ya been? Last I heard, they were planning on replacing the old, outdated, and less-than-modern banner with something new.

There is much less to discuss about general purpose lossless compressors than general purpose audio codecs, due to the redundancies of audio. Despite that fact, the lossless compression board isn't very commonly used. Is there a need for a general lossless compression board? Would there be discussion there? I think not.

Meanwhile, there are many, many tricks that can be used to psychoanalytically compress both audio and video. Hence, a lot to discuss. Many opinions. General file compression comes up so rarely it may as well be consigned to the Off-topic board.

Admins said "no"? Where? Who? When? Both JohnV and Dibrom didn`t replied (or I missed something?) to both this and older thread about making new forum/subforum for normal compression formats.



Smaller files, dude


Not the blind ones...


Yes, I do.


Jabber has his forums, Jabber is REALLY Off-Topic for HA.org IMO.


I just say, that it will be good If Dibrom/JohnV will at least ANSWER to my suggestion.

Whoops, looks like I need to put down the crack pipe.

Yes, 7-zip forum is one of most active of Sourceforge, but Sourceforge forum engine is... bad (edit: and it is about 7-zip only). Also there is no good, well known forum about loseless general compressors. Also, general compressors use multimedia compression, including audio compression formats (for 7-zip it is one of most important TODOs) - so I don`t see better place than HA.org

Cobra, please stop it. The issue has been brought up before, and has been all but officially klemmed.

Personally, I find your suggestion ridiculous, and your reasoning does not make any sense to me.

Many audio enthusiasts are also interested in video compression. Now, how many of them would jump at the opportunity to discuss general data compression? And vice versa, how many experts in general file compression are familiar with the workings of digital audio and are willing to actively participate in HA audio discussion?

It seems to me that in the unlikely case that the new forum were to be created, and in the even more unlikely case that it were to become popular, HA members would be effectively split into the faction that reads the general compression forum and the one that doesn't. And to me, this alone is a good enough reason not to add it.

Actually I'm not sure that this wouldn't be useful. I had never really thought about it but since there ARE open source compressers as such perhaps they could be used in tandem with something such as flac or wavpack to reduce file size even more...

The reason why there will not be a general file compression forum here is because this site is about media technology, and general file compression has no direct relation to that. Media compression formats, are a different matter.

If someone wants to discuss compression theory in relation to media (such as the lossless components that most codecs use at some stage), that's fine, but anything more general than that belongs elsewhere.

They are already split - For example I don`t read at least 25% of HA.org...

Also, I don`t know why You are so sure that there will not be active new forum users? But you can be sure that I`ll promote new (sub)forum on the web... We`ll see, if there will be chance to see of course.

EDIT: Post written before I saw Dibroms answer.

Cobra: Where can I find the 7-zip site. The todo list or anything else relating to them eventually using audio coding?

So, please consider adding text about what EXACLY HA.org is - for example in rules section.

So you suppose your experience here can be extrapolated to the entire userbase?

All three, zlib, bz2lib and libpng are released under the same license, often referred to as the "zlib license" - one of the most liberal licenses around. BZip2 is generally 10-15% better than GZip, but much slower. I once tried compressing a Wave file with BZip2 - there was little or no gain. Fortunately, RAR is available for most systems in a command line version (under a restrictive license).

libpng, libz and libbz2 are independant libraries.

http://www7-zip.org

I`m away for at least next 12 hours

WTF! Since when Dibrom needs to explain what exactly HA is? If he doesn't want to host general compression discussion, it's his decision, period. He doesn't need to report his reasons to trolls.

I've given my answer, and I think it explains what should already be pretty obvious about this site, except perhaps to the obsessive few who insist upon trying to force all of their interests (however unrelated they may be) upon this community.

There is already an off-topic section on this board to discuss anything which isn't related to audio, and this is good enough for any of these other things which are being brought up. If you don't agree with that, then you are more than welcome to start your own forum to discuss this non-media related topic.

I think it's time to close this thread now.