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Thread: The tar treatment

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
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    The tar treatment

    I have a bunch of pretty big video files ... and I thought I w/could save a fair bit of space by tar-ing and zip-ping them. So

    Code:
    tar cvzf movie.tar.gz 1stmovie.m4v
    To my astonishment the .qz file is the same size (1.9 Gig) - well a few Mb less - as the original file.

    Is this "normal"? Or have I perhaps missed something?

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2011
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    Re: The tar treatment

    Yes it is normal, because those files are already compressed with an efficient method.

    You can compare the audio formats wav which I think is not compressed with mp3. It is a factor of 10 or more. The compression is not only loss-less (as with zip, gzip, xz etc), but lossy, using algoritms that try to reduce the size as much as possible at a certain level of quality for the human perception of sounds. Similar methods are used for video.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
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    445

    Re: The tar treatment

    Well so much for that. Guess, yet another, ext HD is in my immediate future.

    That said I never fail to be amazed at how much I don't know.

    Thanks for taking the time to respond.

  4. #4
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    Re: The tar treatment

    You are welcome

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