What Does Lossless Compression Mean?
Lossless compression involves compressing data in such a way that the original data set is fully reconstructed upon reversal of compression. This is in contrast to “lossy” compression, where some data may be lost in the reversal process.
Techopedia Explains Lossless Compression
A general way to think about lossless compression is that for many types of files, including executable programs and code modules, it’s absolutely imperative that all of the data in a compressed format is fully reconstructed when the compression is reversed. Technologies like zip file utilities provide this kind of service, while unzipping files leads to fully reconstituted data sets. In contrast, for music, image or video, it may be acceptable to have some data loss after compression. That’s because although the quality of the media may be affected, these formats will still be digestible and useful with some data loss.
