Winrar compression methods. Do you lose file quality?

[ZaO]

Just been playing with Winrar's compression methods. Apart from "Storage" which seems to keep the original file size, all of them seem to compress by the same amount. It's just you have faster and slower methods. With the slowest one being called "Best". So it seems obvious that "Best" would be the one to chose if you want quality compression. But I'm just wondering - do you lose any quality of the files when you compress them with any of these methods other than "Storage"? I am trying to send someone 2GB of files which Winrar compresses to about 384MB. The files are audio stems from some music I've made. I really don't want them losing any quality! So yeh that's it - will these files lose any quality if I compress them? Thanks

[kalniel]

No, it's lossless compression (because it's not encoding them) - it's designed for data files which you obviously can't throw away bits from

I'd recommend looking at 7zip instead however.

[Agent]

7zip is okay, even if it does look like something out of the 90s'. Winrar is noticeably faster in extracting larger archives on my machine though (standard i5 jobbie), so I've stuck with it.

The reason you're seeing the same file sizes is that the algorithm for for data you're using it against has hit it's cap with one of the 'lower' ones. Going higher just uses a different set of equations on the data, which in this case isn't offering any benefit.

The places where you see it really shine is Text / ASCII data and so on. If you have some huge csv files for example, going higher can make a difference. It's not normally huge though, and I've not found it worthwhile when factoring in the added extraction time on some machines. If anything, I like to make the file a tad bit bigger by adding a recovery record in there, which is proved itself more than once

[ZaO]

No, it's lossless compression (because it's not encoding them) - it's designed for data files which you obviously can't throw away bits from

I'd recommend looking at 7zip instead however.

Well that's brilliant. Thanks mate!

For years I've seen people all over the place recommending 7zip over Winrar. Last time I tried it (2009 I think) I had issues with it. I forget the details of those issues. But I just went back to Winrar which has never done me wrong What's better about 7zip in your opinion? I might give it another shot!

[shaithis]

I'm a recent convert to 7zip also.

Faster, free and supports just as many formats.

[jim]

Well, 7zip is free and open source, WinRAR is neither.

[Agent]

Just found this: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...crar,3436.html

Looks like a nice round up. 7Zip really has come on leaps and bounds speed wise (it pretty much wins every test)

Also looks like there are some skin packs around now to make it look less awful, which is nice

[ZaO]

I'm a recent convert to 7zip also.

Faster, free and supports just as many formats.

Fair enough. Good enough reasons

Well, 7zip is free and open source, WinRAR is neither.

Well I suppose those are nice perks about the software! But I guess I was more concerned about it's functionality and performance over Winrar. I'll just give it a go!

[ZaO]

Just found this: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...crar,3436.html

Looks like a nice round up. 7Zip really has come on leaps and bounds speed wise (it pretty much wins every test)

Also looks like there are some skin packs around now to make it look less awful, which is nice

Thanks! Will have a read through that

[kalniel]

What's better about 7zip in your opinion? I might give it another shot!

It's faster, compresses more, is open source, has options for a self extractor version, and can do zips well as well.

[ZaO]

It's faster, compresses more, is open source, has options for a self extractor version, and can do zips well as well.

Thanks. I have uninstalled winrar and am trying out 7zip for a while to see what I think

[jim]

It's faster, compresses more, is open source, has options for a self extractor version, and can do zips well as well.

Doesn't WinRAR have an executable function?

[Agent]

yup, it does