Mediaspace scheduled maintenance: Aug 25, 2026 07:00 - 12:00 AM. During this time, videos will be temporarily unavailable. Check status updates.

Lecture

Universal Compression: Lempel-Ziv Method

In course

COM-404: Information theory and coding

The mathematical principles of communication that govern the compression and transmission of data and the design of efficient methods of doing so. ...

Description

This lecture covers the Universal Compression using the Lempel-Ziv method, Finite-State Machines, and the concept of distinct pairing. Emre Telatar explains the compression process, demonstrating how LZ compression outperforms other methods.

Instructor

Emre Telatar

I. Emre Telatar received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, in 1986. He received the S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, in 1988 and 1992 respectively. In 1992, he joined the Communications Analysis Research Department at AT&T Bell Laboratories (later Lucent Technologies), Murray Hill, NJ. He has been at the EPFL since 2000. Emre Telatar was the recipient of the IEEE Information Theory Society Paper Award in 2001. He was a program co-chair for the IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory in 2002, and associate editor for Shannon Theory for the IEEE Information Theory Transactions from 2001 to 2004. He was awarded the EPFL Agepoly teaching prize in 2005. Emre Telatar's research interests are in communication and information theories.

Official source

Related concepts (32)

Lossless compression

Lossless compression is a class of data compression that allows the original data to be perfectly reconstructed from the compressed data with no loss of information. Lossless compression is possible because most real-world data exhibits statistical redundancy. By contrast, lossy compression permits reconstruction only of an approximation of the original data, though usually with greatly improved compression rates (and therefore reduced media sizes).

Data compression

In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compression reduces bits by identifying and eliminating statistical redundancy. No information is lost in lossless compression. Lossy compression reduces bits by removing unnecessary or less important information.

Image compression

Image compression is a type of data compression applied to s, to reduce their cost for storage or transmission. Algorithms may take advantage of visual perception and the statistical properties of image data to provide superior results compared with generic data compression methods which are used for other digital data. Image compression may be lossy or lossless. Lossless compression is preferred for archival purposes and often for medical imaging, technical drawings, clip art, or comics.

Lossy compression

In information technology, lossy compression or irreversible compression is the class of data compression methods that uses inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. These techniques are used to reduce data size for storing, handling, and transmitting content. The different versions of the photo of the cat on this page show how higher degrees of approximation create coarser images as more details are removed. This is opposed to lossless data compression (reversible data compression) which does not degrade the data.

Space–time block code

Space–time block coding is a technique used in wireless communications to transmit multiple copies of a data stream across a number of antennas and to exploit the various received versions of the data to improve the reliability of data transfer. The fact that the transmitted signal must traverse a potentially difficult environment with scattering, reflection, refraction and so on and may then be further corrupted by thermal noise in the receiver means that some of the received copies of the data may be closer to the original signal than others.

Related lectures (42)

Information Theory: Source Coding & Channel Coding

Covers the fundamentals of information theory, focusing on source coding and channel coding.

Data Compression: Entropy Definition

Explores data compression through entropy definition, types, and practical examples, illustrating its role in efficient information storage and transmission.

Compression: Prefix-Free Codes

Explains prefix-free codes for efficient data compression and the significance of uniquely decodable codes.

Entropy and Compression I

Explores entropy theory, compression without loss, and the efficiency of the Shannon-Fano algorithm in data compression.

Compression: introduction MOOC: Information, Computation, Communication: Introduction to computational thinking