Old Protocol Could Save Massive Bandwidth

GFD writes: "The EETimes has a story about a relavtively old protocol for structured information call ASN.1 could be used to compress a 200 byte XML document to 2 bytes and few bits. I wonder if the same could be done with XHTML or even regular HTML."

Re:The same struggle in the VoIP world

[OpCode42]

There is a revolutionary new form of voice compression that works, not only over VoIP but also on your analog telephone lines.

Simply cut out the un-needed words.

[dials]
Broken down. Main street. Need spare tyre.
[hangs up]

See, it'll half your phone bills!

Lossy-soft!

[D. Mann]

Why, that sounds like LossySoft! Compress gigabytes of files to bits!

An excerpt from LampreySoft's page:

After a typical LossySoft HSV compression cycle you achieve a 16:1 compression ratio, or

9 gigabytes = approx 600 megabytes. You've compressed your data on your very expensive hard drive into a size that will fit on an average 2 gigabyte hard drive with PLENTY of room to spare.

Here's where the REAL excitement comes in - let's run the compression cycle TEN TIMES!

Cycle Size in bytes

9,663,676,416 (9 gigs, it takes a huge hard drive to hold)
603,979,776 (approx 600 megs, fits on an Iomega Jaz disk, a Syquest SyJet disk, or a CD-R)
37,748,736 (approx 35 megs, fits on an Iomega Zip disk, a Syquest Ezflyer disk, or a LS-120 disk)
2,359,296 (approx 2 megs, transfers fairly quickly on a 28.8K or faster modem)
147,456 (approx 150K, fits on all current removable media)
9,216 (9K - wow!)
576 (just over HALF a K!)
36 (that's BYTES, folks!)
2.25 (incredible, isn't it?)
0.140625 (AMAZING!)
Current technology can't split bytes very well, so the minimum you can compress any disk to is 1 bit.

(Note: future LampreySoft products will use advanced features of quantum mathematics to reduce the lowest unit of information measure to sub-bit levels)

LossySoft! [smart.net]

Postum primus?

[hivolt]

Sounds like a lossy compression program I heard about early April....it could compress to 0 bytes, if I remember correctly.

Re:More bandwidth is good

[Big Brass Balls]

Better not let Microsoft [goatse.cx] get a hold of it [goatse.cx], otherwise, they might just screw things up [microsoft.com].

Re:More bandwidth is good

[Big Brass Balls]

I'm feeling so special now.

You sure are, considering you're this kind of special [specialolympics.org].

Re:Postum primus?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the hell would i want a lousy compression format?

You're not the sharpest tool in the shed, are you?

Re:not quite

[thejake316]

Well, in one benchmark my friend's sister told me about, a friend of a 200-byte message was compressed to 2 bytes and a few bits when he crashed his car into a tree, but they never found his eyes, so they think he always had two glass eyes but never told anybody. True story, ask anyone.

Reverse Engineer hax0r3d!

[TroyFoley]

I figured it out. They do it by removing the data pertaining to popup/popunder banners! 100 to 1 ratio seems about right.

Practice what you preach...

[Anonymous Coward]

Their web page was generated by M$ frontpage. Does anyone else find it amusing that they tout their amazing compression standard using the most inefficient, bloated html generator available on the planet?

Re:Multimedia?

[Sir Robin]

I have seldom encountered an html file larger than a meg, and even those are in my experience very rare.

You've obviously never saved a 5k Word doc in HTML. *sigh*.

Re:What? No way.

[ElRata]

This is even better than ASN.1.
Original XML (130 bytes):

<AnEncodedInteger>

The whole number that is located between
one hundred seventy seven and
one hundred seventy nine
</AnEncodedInteger>

Binary encoded (1 byte):
10110010
That's a 130:1 ratio.

Re:Sounds like they're spewing buzzwords...

[philipm]

I'm wondering why they didn't just byte the bullet and use the patented ZERO.1 compression algorithm which compresses most XML to its true information size. Strangely enough that is usually zero bits.

And, no, its not lossy.

Re:Postum primus?

[Phork]

cock smoker? wtf is that supposed to mean? How would you go about smoking a cock? the only way i can think of is cut it off and put it in a bong or pipe, and i dont even know how well it would burn, you would proably have to dry it first.