Bandwidth, Latency & Compression

Bandwidth, Latency & Compression

1. Bandwidth

   • The amount of data that can be transferred from one computer to another in a given period of time.
   • This is measured in bits per second or megabits per second.
   • High is better than low-allows you to transfer more data bits per second.
   • Online gaming- Less bandwidth is better
   • Online Streaming- High bandwidth is needed in order for it to work

2. Latency

   • The time taken to transfer a data packet over a network
   • Measured in milliseconds
   • Low is better- can reach destination faster
   • Online gaming- Fast and high latency is better
   • Online Streaming- High bandwidth is needed in order for it to work

3. Lossy Compression

   • Permanently deleted data to reduce file size cannot restore back to its original form.
   • +Size is reduced more than lossless
   • -- Reduced quality
   • -- When compressing audio or video files cannot be compressed further so it increases the file size.
   • -- Could prevent users from watching video as they have not used CODEC

4. Lossless Compression

   • Packs of data in less space. Can be restored back to its original form.
   • +Can be decompressed back to their original quality
   • -- Can be identified as malware preventing users from accessing them
   • -- When compressing audio or video files cannot be compressed further so it increases the file size.
   • -- Takes time and memory, causes computer system to lag

5. Hardware codecs

   • Encode analogue data, (can't be stored or used), into digital data brackets which they can ). then decodes the digital data into an analogue form stop

6. Software codecs

   • Used to compress data with audio and video data and transmits over a network