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0 pointsuser-the-name4y ago0 comments

But why? Why spend that much effort introducing a method that is basically entirely outdated at this point, and is also fairly complicated?

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5 comments · 1 top-level

hexxagone4y ago· 4 in thread

Huffmann is rather simple and hard to beat in decompression speed.

vardump4y ago

For high entropy data (=somewhat random data), FSE is quite comparable to Huffman in compression speed.

For low entropy (lots of high probability symbols, like zeroes), Huffman is about 2-3x faster. But on the flipside, FSE achieves markedly higher compression ratio.

I think FSE is worth the speed tradeoff vs Huffman in most cases.

hexxagone4y ago

"FSE achieves markedly higher compression ratio". I do not thin it is true, FSE/ANS achieves slightly better ratios in general. Zstd uses both Huffman (for large alphabets) and FSE (for small alphabets).

user-the-nameOP4y ago

Arithmetic coding is much, much simpler. And decompression speed is not a limiting factor in most applications of data compression like this.

hexxagone4y ago

"Arithmetic coding is much, much simpler." Let us agree to disagree. "And decompression speed is not a limiting factor in most applications of data compression like this". It depends on the application. Zstd and Brotli are certainly aiming at the fastest decompression speed possible.

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5 comments · 1 top-level

hexxagone4y ago· 4 in thread

Huffmann is rather simple and hard to beat in decompression speed.

vardump4y ago

For high entropy data (=somewhat random data), FSE is quite comparable to Huffman in compression speed.

For low entropy (lots of high probability symbols, like zeroes), Huffman is about 2-3x faster. But on the flipside, FSE achieves markedly higher compression ratio.

I think FSE is worth the speed tradeoff vs Huffman in most cases.

hexxagone4y ago

"FSE achieves markedly higher compression ratio". I do not thin it is true, FSE/ANS achieves slightly better ratios in general. Zstd uses both Huffman (for large alphabets) and FSE (for small alphabets).

user-the-nameOP4y ago

Arithmetic coding is much, much simpler. And decompression speed is not a limiting factor in most applications of data compression like this.

hexxagone4y ago

"Arithmetic coding is much, much simpler." Let us agree to disagree. "And decompression speed is not a limiting factor in most applications of data compression like this". It depends on the application. Zstd and Brotli are certainly aiming at the fastest decompression speed possible.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse