What am I missing here?

[baggss]

Ok, I have a file that I want to upload to a server. The fils is 509 Mb in size. I open Stuffit 10 and set the compression for StuffitX and ZIP to max compression. I then Stuff the file. Then I separately ZIP it as a comparison. Both the resultant files come out at 510Mb. I thought the point was to decrease the file size through compression. What am I missing here?

 

[caribiner23]

If it's a binary file, it may not be able to be compressed any further. Compression works best on text and document files.

I've seen binary files that actually become larger if you try to compress them.

 

[cazabam]

What is the file type? If it's an MP3 or AVI or something, chances are it's a waste of time to try and compress it. The algorithms used to compress the audio and video are sufficiently good that additional compression algorithms just can't do anything and then you have the added overhead of the compressed file header. If it doesn't shrink when compressing it, don't compress it

 

[caribiner23]

MP3 and AVI = binary files.