http compression

[harry]

Does an http compression method just compresses all tag languages, JavaScript and other text files, don’t they compress images,
animation files and video files which are hot elements for a success of a site.

[kev woodman]

Depends what you mean by a HTTP compression method - if you mean those Web accelerator apps that offer to increase transfer speeds then they compress everything they can including images.

If you mean the tools you can get which offer to compress your HTML/CSS the they just remove whitespace and other bits of chaff. To be honest they probably aren't worth bothering with.

[harry]

Originally Posted by kev woodman

if you mean those Web accelerator apps that offer to increase transfer speeds then they compress everything they can, including images.

Hi Kev,
as you said " web accelerator .... compress everything they can, including images."
What's about long videos and animations, today such files play significant role for getting popularity.

can http compression works on such media files,?

[kev woodman]

Sorry Harry - I'm not sure which direction you're coming from on this. Are you hoping to use some sort of compressiion server-side to improve the performance of your site or are you talking about something like onSpeed at " onspeed.com "which works client-side to try and speed up someone's net connection?

[harry]

kev, if my site provides free uploads of videos and animations just for sharing with other,
then there could be thousands of newcomers coming up everyday to contribute and same numbers
would be browsing, which will affect on my bandwidth, to reduce this network conjunction and precious bandwidth can HTTP compression technique be used ?

[kev woodman]

I don't think so Harry - you can compress your files individually but there's nothing you can do with the protocol itself. If you have a media heavy site then you are not going to be able to avoid increased bandwidth use.

You can try to minimise it by making sure that you optimise all the content and that you limit the size of files that you allow others to upload.

[sanderson]

Originally Posted by harry

Does an http compression method just compresses all tag languages, JavaScript and other text files, don’t they compress images,
animation files and video files which are hot elements for a success of a site.

Hello Harry,

Yes, I am totally agree with you about the hot elements you mentioned. You can also compress, actually compress will not be a perfect word to use, you can use the word, optimize or encode-decode, for audio video purpose. You may have heard a lot about MP3, what is it, it is a compression of a audio data - MP3 provides CD-quality sound with a minimum size. These days MP4 is replacing MP3 which offers smaller size! Yes smaller than MP3 and higher audio quality. Likewise there are many tools/softwares available today with which you can compress your multimedia content – animations, graphics, video, audio etc. - for the optimization of speed and size. Which will be definitely helpful to reduce the load on your site.

I hope this will help you to get you more clarity on the issue but to make more confuse.

[harry]

Thanks kev,
Limiting the size of files that user can upload seems to be a good idea.

Can you tell me which technology do Youtube and other giants may be using; I know they have huge bandwidth so their performance is not affected.

[kev woodman]

If you have a look at YouTube the videos themselves are actually pretty low quality which certainly helps but even so there bandwidth costs are vast - 200 terabytes of data a day or $1 million dollars a month in charges - and growing.

On a smaller scale you could limit the size in MB of uploaded files, limit the size in terms of resolution e.g. 320x240, or even specify particular file formats e.g. only allowing Flash video or divx or .wmv.

If you're delivering video you also need to think about whether you are going to embed it or use a streaming technology.

[harry]

Kev, i appreciate your opinion and i thanks you for your kind suggestions

Streaming video would be a right choice for now. as far as bandwidth is concerned.