<p>Agree, the sentence makes no sense and is most likely an oversight by authors and reviewers: &quot;lossless compression&quot; is &quot;lossless&quot; AND &quot;compression&quot;, so you cannot ask for lossless data representation and discourage compression without being more specific.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-02-16T12:46:48.420Z
2023-02-16T18:41:56.270Z
2023-02-16T18:41:56.270Z
WMXZ
<p>In NPL's Good Pratice Guidance for underwater noise recordings (<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263229365_Good_Practice_Guide_No_133_Underwater_Noise_Measurement" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263229365_Good_Practice_Guide_No_133_Underwater_Noise_Measurement</a>)</p>
<p>The underwater noise guideline (p33) states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>&quot;To avoid degradation of the data quality, the data format used to
store the data should ideally be lossless (no data compression). If
data compression formats are used in order to increase the storage
capacity (and thereby the recording duration), the effect on the data
quality should be known.&quot;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is nonsense to me as &quot;lossless&quot; compression is lossless, no information is lost. Therefore specifying, in brackets, that this means &quot;no compression&quot; is not logical (and I argue, wrong).</p>
<p>I assume they meant &quot;(no <em>lossy</em> data compression)&quot;.</p>
<p>Can you confirm that I'm not the only one thinking the guidance has got this wrong?</p>
<p>2023/03/01: I queried the authors:
&quot;The main point is that the data should be stored with no loss of integrity. Some data compression techniques can recover the original data without loss, and this is perfectly fine.&quot;</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-02-16T16:13:21.460Z
I agree they most probably meant 'lossy' compression
Noil
<compression><data>
NPL's Good Pratice Guide discourages the use of any compression in recorded data to avoid information degradation - does this make sense?
# NPL's Good Pratice Guide discourages the use of any compression in recorded data to avoid information degradation - does this make sense?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2023-02-16)

In NPL's Good Pratice Guidance for underwater noise recordings (<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263229365_Good_Practice_Guide_No_133_Underwater_Noise_Measurement>)

The underwater noise guideline (p33) states:

> "To avoid degradation of the data quality, the data format used to
> store the data should ideally be lossless (no data compression). If
> data compression formats are used in order to increase the storage
> capacity (and thereby the recording duration), the effect on the data
> quality should be known."

This is nonsense to me as "lossless" compression is lossless, no information is lost. Therefore specifying, in brackets, that this means "no compression" is not logical (and I argue, wrong).

I assume they meant "(no *lossy* data compression)".

Can you confirm that I'm not the only one thinking the guidance has got this wrong?

2023/03/01: I queried the authors:
"The main point is that the data should be stored with no loss of integrity. Some data compression techniques can recover the original data without loss, and this is perfectly fine."

**Tags:** compression, data

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I agree they most probably meant 'lossy' compression  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2023-02-16. Score: 3 | Accepted answer

Agree, the sentence makes no sense and is most likely an oversight by authors and reviewers: "lossless compression" is "lossless" AND "compression", so you cannot ask for lossless data representation and discourage compression without being more specific.


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