Submitted by Pocketcine on February 9, 2007 - 3:38pm.
Compressed video may be compared to frozen concentrated orange juice. By removing water from freshly squeezed orange juice at the packing house, canned frozen juice can travel great distances at the fraction of the weight and volume of the original liquid. When the consumer mixes the water back into the concentrated juice, they are returning the juice to its original weight and volume. Compression removes the bulk of data from a video file then returns that bulk to the file when it is decompressed. Of course, the decompressed video is not exactly like the original file, although good compression will minimize the apparent difference. You prefer freshly squeezed orange juice? Tough.
