compression

[taker36904]

What is the BEST compression program out there that i can get the best compression rate?

Also,how do you guys get winrar to compress a 1gb file down to 400mb or lower?

Thanks in advance.

[guns1inger]

7zip has a goo reputation for being able to compress a little further than the others. However, 1GB down 400mb is a big ask for video or audio that has already been heavily compressed. You have to remember that Xvid/Divx/mpeg etc have already compressed most of the flab out of the files, so file compression software like winrar can't find much more to squeeze. If you had 1 gb of microsoft word documents, then a 400 mb archive would be achievable. But if you are talking about video, then forget it.

[jagabo]

Note that the last step of all MPEG compression (including MPEG 4 codecs like Divx, Xvid, h.264) is a modified Huffman encoding -- similar to the compression techniques used by compression programs. So you usually can't further compress these video files.

[RabidDog]

Use slowest/Best compression option in any prog you do choose. It doesnt make a vast difference but with cpus being so gad-dommed fast these days it makes sense to sacrifice time over space
faster compession modes are less thorough
compressing xvid/divx/avc/mpeg1/mpeg2/jpeg with eg Winzip std is pointless as you can end with a file that is larger than the original.
mp3/mp4 compression works by losing some of information in the file...