Add to Reddit
Movies - DivX
Compression Rate
| Data Compressors |
Original Size (bytes) |
Compressed Size (bytes) |
Space Saved (bytes) |
SBC Archiver |
200,228,230
|
179,976,827 |
20,251,403 |
WinRAR |
200,228,230
|
184,506,588 |
15,721,642 |
WinRK |
200,228,230
|
185,622,032 |
14,606,198 |
Squeez |
200,228,230
|
185,846,709 |
14,381,521 |
WinAce |
200,228,230
|
188,180,396 |
12,047,834 |
7-Zip |
200,228,230
|
188,336,244 |
11,891,986 |
WinZip |
200,228,230
|
189,574,669 |
10,653,561 |
bzip2 |
200,228,230
|
190,954,529 |
9,273,701 |
gzip |
200,228,230
|
192,179,352 |
8,048,878 |
ARJ32 |
200,228,230
|
192,499,283 |
7,728,947 |
StuffIt |
200,228,230
|
200,238,053 |
-9,823 |
In this test of DivX video files, we can see just how hard it is to compress media files that are already compressed. Even the best compressor, SBC Archiver, only managed a compression rate of just over 10%, with a space saving of about 20.3MB.
WinRAR was a rather distant second, followed closely by WinRK and Squeez. The worst compressor was StuffIt. As we saw with MP3 files, it refused to compress this fileset, even when set to maximum compression. This resulted in an archive that was slightly bigger than the original fileset.
Compression Speed
| Data Compressors |
Original Size (bytes) |
Time (s) |
Speed (KB/s) |
StuffIt |
200,228,230
|
5.01 |
39965.7 |
gzip |
200,228,230
|
16.21 |
12352.1 |
ARJ32 |
200,228,230
|
18.88 |
10605.3 |
bzip2 |
200,228,230
|
52.11 |
3842.4 |
7-Zip |
200,228,230
|
104.88 |
1909.1 |
SBC Archiver |
200,228,230
|
143.72 |
1393.2 |
WinRAR |
200,228,230
|
154.63 |
1294.9 |
WinAce |
200,228,230
|
196.36 |
1019.7 |
WinZip |
200,228,230
|
214.58 |
933.1 |
Squeez |
200,228,230
|
216.28 |
925.8 |
WinRK |
200,228,230
|
597.76 |
335.0 |
The speed leader was naturally StuffIt. It only took 5 seconds to crunch through 200MB of DivX files because all it did was pack the files together with no compression whatsoever.
The fastest compressors that actually did any real compression work were gzip and ARJ32. They all compressed the fileset in about 16-19 seconds, giving them a compression speed of 11-12MB/s. The other compressors were much slower, with WinRK stupendously slow. It took over 9 minutes to complete the test.
Compression Efficiency
The compression efficiency rating is a simple way to evaluate the efficiency of each data compressor. This way, we can see which compressor can save the most space in the least time.
Please note that a higher efficiency rating does not mean the compressor is better. It just means the compressor has a better compression-to-speed ratio. A more efficient compressor is, of course, always more desirable than a less efficient one.
The most efficient data compressors when it comes to DivX video clips was gzip. Its tremendously fast compression speed more than made up for its average compression rate, allowing it to be the efficiency leader in this fileset. Only ARJ32 was close behind it. The other compressors were much less efficient than gzip and ARJ32.
The most inefficient compressors were, naturally, WinRK and StuffIt. WinRK because of its extremely slow compression speed, and StuffIt because of its total refusal to compress the fileset.
