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YOUR NOTES
IGCSE ICT CIE
9.2 Compression
CONTENTS
File Compression
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File Compression YOUR NOTES
Why Reduce File Size?
The size of a file determines:
How much space it will require for storage
How long it will take to transmit from one device to another
Often file sizes need to be reduced and will use a form of compression
The two types of compression are:
Lossy compression - Unnecessary data is removed and can significantly reduce file
sizes. This is most often used for audio, video and image
Lossless - Allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed
version without any loss of information or quality. This is most often used for text and
document and software compression
E.g. if 10 images were to be displayed on a website and their original size was 18MB each,
with an internet connection of 32 megabits per second the webpage would take around 45
seconds to load and require 180 Mb of storage space online to host the images
Using lossy compression it is possible to compress the files down to around 10% of their
original size meaning that the same internet connection would require just 4 seconds to
load the images and the storage requirement for the files would be 18MB
How are Files Compressed?
There are many different technical ways that file sizes can be reduced however some simple
methods and techniques for multimedia files are below:
Images can be compressed by the following:
Reducing the number of colours in the image (known as the bit depth)
Reducing the resolution of the image (the total amount of pixels that make up the
image)
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Videos can be compressed by the following: YOUR NOTES
Reducing the video resolution
Reducing the number of video frames per second
Sound can be compressed by the following:
Removing frequencies that are outside of the human hearing range
Worked Example
An author is writing a new textbook about ICT. He has used a large number of
images in the document and wishes to send the document as an email attachment
to his publisher, but the file is currently too large.
Describe how he could reduce the size of the document without reducing the
number of images. [4]
The author could reduce the size of the document by either reducing the image
resolution [1]
changing the file formats of each of the individual images [1]
saving as a PDF [1]
or compressing /zip the folder with all the photos to a smaller size [1]
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How to Compress a File YOUR NOTES
An uncompressed document containing both text and images
A document can be compressed by converting it to a PDF file
By converting the document to a pdf, the file size reduction is more than half
Exam Tip
Remember that although you are compressing the file to a PDF file this means
that the file cannot be edited in the same way and so it is important to keep a
copy of the original uncompressed file in case any changes are required
Compressing Multiple Images Together
Hold Ctrl and select all the images you would like to compress, right click and choose
‘Compress to Zip file’
Using the Zip file compression technique has reduced the file size considerably
Total for all files before compression: 8477KB
Total for all files after compression: 727KB
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YOUR NOTES
The same can be done using WinRar
Hold Ctrl and select all the images you would like to compress, right click and choose
‘WinRAR followed by Add to Archive’
Give the archive a title and click OK
The compressed file is now in the directory
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Note* Sometimes when using WinZip or WinRar the file sizes will not compress further as some YOUR NOTES
file types are already compressed, such as JPEG images. Another reason may be that different
compression algorithms are used by different compression software, and their effectiveness
can vary depending on the file types being compressed
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