Any Compression Utilities That Actually Work?

eedioteediot Join Date: 2003-02-24 Member: 13903Members
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">Winrar, winzip, are 99.5% useless.</div> I just spent the past 20 minutes compressing a 100mb folder in Winrar, in "best" compression, and the final .rar filesize is... 99.7mb. Score!

Do any of these compression methods actually work competently? How else can I compress file sizes efficiently?

It seems that these compression programs/methods don't do anything, even with large files [700mb+ takes off about 3mb], and are only useful as archivers - i.e keeping proper directory structures.
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Comments

  • CForresterCForrester P0rk(h0p Join Date: 2002-10-05 Member: 1439Members, Constellation
    If something is already compressed, you aren't going to be able to compress it much more. (If you're compressing JPGs or AVIs or something) However, if you're compressing uncompressed things like BMPs or text files, it'll compress well.

    If you're trying to compress something that's already compressed, I'm afraid you're out of luck.
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  • DOOManiacDOOManiac Worst. Critic. Ever. Join Date: 2002-04-17 Member: 462Members, NS1 Playtester
    Ditto what CForrester said. In addition, make sure you're using "Maximum" compression to make sure you are squeezing each bit of space you can. Default w/ most zip/rar programs is Standard because Max takes longer.
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  • RandomEngyRandomEngy Join Date: 2002-11-03 Member: 6146Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    What forrester said. You're probably trying to compress audio or video, and just about all audio and video out there is already compressed.
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  • QuaunautQuaunaut The longest seven days in history... Join Date: 2003-03-21 Member: 14759Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
    Uh...don't know whats wrong with yours, but I just got a savegames folder from Athena for DOOM 3(my PC = dead, just wanting to get back to where I was), and the 120mb folder compressed down to 20mb. Try not zipping the folder, but zipping everything INSIDE the folder. That was what really helped this it seems.
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  • IsamilIsamil Join Date: 2003-11-25 Member: 23552Members, Constellation
    edited August 2004
    I use 7 zip, it has the .7z format.
    <a href='http://7-zip.org/' target='_blank'>http://7-zip.org/</a>
    It also has everything else
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  • eedioteediot Join Date: 2003-02-24 Member: 13903Members
    So for stuff like compressed media files [AVI's, etc], I'd be better off loading it up in some program and then compressing the codecs etc? Reducing the quality of picture and the sound?

    What about compressing programs...
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  • CabooseCaboose title = name(self, handle) Join Date: 2003-02-15 Member: 13597Members, Constellation
    I don't know if it's help, but bzip2 compression usually is pretty good. I don't know if there's anything for windows to make em tho.
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  • RandomEngyRandomEngy Join Date: 2002-11-03 Member: 6146Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    <!--QuoteBegin-eediot+Aug 15 2004, 02:47 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (eediot @ Aug 15 2004, 02:47 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> So for stuff like compressed media files [AVI's, etc], I'd be better off loading it up in some program and then compressing the codecs etc? Reducing the quality of picture and the sound?

    What about compressing programs... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
    Yeah if you really have to lower the filesizes of video files using an outside lossless compression (rar, zip, etc) won't help. Just like you said: you'll have to open it up with a program like <a href='http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/' target='_blank'>Virtualdubmod</a> and then save it off with a lower video/audio bitrate.
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  • DOOManiacDOOManiac Worst. Critic. Ever. Join Date: 2002-04-17 Member: 462Members, NS1 Playtester
    edited August 2004
    <!--QuoteBegin-eediot+Aug 14 2004, 08:47 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (eediot @ Aug 14 2004, 08:47 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> So for stuff like compressed media files [AVI's, etc], I'd be better off loading it up in some program and then compressing the codecs etc? Reducing the quality of picture and the sound?

    What about compressing programs... <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    Well, if its already been compressed once (as almost every AVI and mp3 is) you can't really compress it again. You can, but you'll just get that tiny bit of difference that you noticed earlier.


    Think of it as a sponge. You squeeze the sponge really really hard, and it gets smaller. You can squeeze again, but it just ain't gonna get much smaller than that...
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  • BlackMageBlackMage [citation needed] Join Date: 2003-06-18 Member: 17474Members, Constellation
    edited August 2004
    doom: i present to you, the vicegrip of metaphorical sponges:
    UHARC (gui by Brhack) <a href='http://www.softbasket.com/download/s_5766.shtml' target='_blank'>http://www.softbasket.com/download/s_5766.shtml</a>

    it only makes .exes but they are daaaaamn small .exes

    edit: since we're talking about mp3s and dvd's lets give it a spin, screenies pending.

    edit2: since the last time i used it, it seems they have added support for .uha in addition to sfxs (self extracting archives)
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  • RandomEngyRandomEngy Join Date: 2002-11-03 Member: 6146Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    <!--QuoteBegin-Black Mage+Aug 15 2004, 04:07 AM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Black Mage @ Aug 15 2004, 04:07 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> doom: i present to you, the vicegrip of metaphorical sponges:
    UHARC (gui by Brhack) <a href='http://www.softbasket.com/download/s_5766.shtml' target='_blank'>http://www.softbasket.com/download/s_5766.shtml</a>

    it only makes .exes but they are daaaaamn small .exes

    edit: since we're talking about mp3s and dvd's lets give it a spin, screenies pending. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
    Ooh, 52% of people liked it. That's like more than half.
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  • Chaos_LlamaChaos_Llama Join Date: 2004-04-23 Member: 28124Members
    It really works Uharc.

    I had a file that was 200 mb, uncompressed it was 1.50 GB !
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  • usernameusername Join Date: 2004-06-22 Member: 29473Members
    yeah, UHARC is awesome, when i was backing up things for a format, i compressed almost 2gb of stuff into 80mb.
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  • CabooseCaboose title = name(self, handle) Join Date: 2003-02-15 Member: 13597Members, Constellation
    Yea, I had a rar that was 6kb extracted it was 3 gigs. Your point?
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  • usernameusername Join Date: 2004-06-22 Member: 29473Members
    edited August 2004
    <span style='color:white'>Cut back on the sarcasm.</span>
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  • CabooseCaboose title = name(self, handle) Join Date: 2003-02-15 Member: 13597Members, Constellation
    Actually it was bzip2 not rar, and it was 3kb, not 6, my bad.

    Here's alink if you don't beleive me. <a href='http://umn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/pearpc/pearpc-3gib.img.bz2' target='_blank'>http://umn.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/...pc-3gib.img.bz2</a>
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  • BlackMageBlackMage [citation needed] Join Date: 2003-06-18 Member: 17474Members, Constellation
    edited August 2004
    tarballing/gzipping also works, i don't have any numbers for .tar.gz though

    edit: ran some tests with uharc 0.4b, results:

    boondock marines.avi: 640x480, 30fps, 49.1MB --> 44.9MB
    Otherworld - 64.mp3: 3:15, 64kbps, 2.98MB --> 2.91MB
    Otherworld - 192.mp3: 3:15, 192kbps, 4.46MB --> 4.37MB
    Rei10.jpg: 1024x768, quality 10, 11.1kb --> 11.2KB
    Rei95.jpg: 1024x768, quality 95, 199kb --> 200KB
    #ns logs.txt: 71.5MB --> 14.7MB

    as you can see, compression works best when you're compressing repetative data like my logs of #ns (lots and lots of timestamps), as opposed to already compressed data like a jpg where attempting to compress it can actually increase the filesize
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  • antifreezeantifreeze The guy with the goods&#33; Join Date: 2003-05-12 Member: 16232Members, Constellation
    Compressing programs, hemm. That also depends, if the there is a single .exe file but is 500 mb then it means that there is compressed files within the exe. If your talking about a program which has been extracted out and is many files and you going to compress the whole thing it should compress pretty well.
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  • wnnwnn Zombie Panic modeller Join Date: 2003-06-03 Member: 16960Members
    Back to winrar and winzip - i found out that compressing on 'Fastest' Actually makes the file smaller in means of a few MB's in very small files..
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  • ZaggyZaggy NullPointerException The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-12-10 Member: 24214Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Onos, Subnautica Playtester
    eediot what are you trying to compress?
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  • eedioteediot Join Date: 2003-02-24 Member: 13903Members
    I'm trying to compress about 7 or so .WMV files.
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  • NecroticNecrotic Big Girl&#39;s Blouse Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 53Members, NS1 Playtester
    Convert them to a differant file format (I can't remember if you can even open .wmv in virtualdub due to MS codec patents) like .avi or whathaveyou, compress using divx or xvid or anything else. You can't compress compressed video using a compression utility.

    Try saying that with a mouthful of chips.
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