Yeah, it's not the compression I care so much about, it's the quality. Do I really want my best Tony Orlando and Dawn CD compressed to sound like I'm listening to Thomas Edison's phonograph?
Music, video, and image compression will always allow greater compression ratios than regular data, because music, video, and images can tolerate "LOSSY" compression.
In almost all cases, you don't want your digital data files (programs, word documents, etc.) to lose even one bit, because they won't work right.
OTOH, as long as you're willing to tolerate crappy sound and visuals, you can compress the sh*t out of media files.
So my FRiend, you are stuck with "LOSSLESS" compression: LZW and similar, a-la ZIP, tgz, rar, etc.
Yeah, it's not the compression I care so much about, it's the quality. Do I really want my best Tony Orlando and Dawn CD compressed to sound like I'm listening to Thomas Edison's phonograph?