BTEC LEVEL 3 IT UNIT 1 COMPRESSION

TRANSMITTING DATA
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW EXAMPLE EXAM QUESTIONS
JPG/JPEG

• Types of compression 1. A pair of cooks losing weight set up a

• lossy blog and website and decide to make a
• lossless PNG
Image
GIF weekly podcast. Describe the
Formats
• The applications and implications of data implications of codecs when using
compression sound in digital format (4 marks)
• The use and implications of codecs
when using and transmitting audio and H. 264 Compressed 2. Using example file types, what is the
video in digital format File Formats
difference between lossy and lossless
MP3
compression? (4 marks)
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT? Video
Music
Formats
Formats
3. Write an example exam question
• Multimedia files are big (as in file size)
MP4
• This matters as they take up storage
space and if you want to transfer it over MPEG OGG

a network it would take a long time

• So compression is used to reduce the
file size and solve these issues

KEYWORDS

Compression
Lossy
Lossless
Codec
File size
File quality
File Formats

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 BTEC LEVEL 3 IT UNIT 1 COMPRESSION
TRANSMITTING DATA
COMPARE FILE FORMATS LOSSY OR LOSSLESS?

1. Using the useful websites section of PNG

computingdepartment.com, download a
large image, a sound file and a video to JPG/JPEG
a folder on your computer
GIF
2. Make a note of the file sizes of each
MP3
Image _____________________________ OGG
Audio _____________________________ MPEG-2

Video _____________________________ MP4

3. Find a way to reduce the size of the REVISION TASK

image file and record the size you
managed to reduce it to: • Write another task that could be added to this sheet to help revise the topic

__________________________________

4. Describe how you reduced the size

__________________________________
Codec True or False True False What did you
__________________________________ think of these
Video files are very large sheet?
5. Write another way you could have A codec isn’t a file/piece of software
reduced the file size  
A codec is needed to view a video
__________________________________ Why?
Codecs can be used to reduce the size/compress an audio file
__________________________________
Codecs improve viewing when using a slow connection
Lossy codecs don’t save any more space than lossless codecs
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