What is lossless vs. lossy compression?
Lossless compression shrinks a file without discarding any data; lossy compression discards data a viewer is unlikely to notice, for a much smaller file.
PNG and FLAC are lossless - decompress them and you get back exactly the original data, bit for bit. JPEG, MP3 and most video codecs are lossy - they permanently discard information to hit a target file size, and that loss compounds if the same file is repeatedly re-compressed.
Neither is universally "better": lossless is for masters, archives and anything that will be edited further; lossy is for final delivery, where the file needs to be small and the original is kept safe elsewhere in case another edit is needed.
Koldflux picks the right codec, container and bitrate for every platform automatically - this glossary exists because our own team had to get it right first.
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