Preserving every part of the original information through encoding or transformation.
Reach for it when making a technical claim about exact recoverability rather than merely high perceived quality
The archive stores a lossless audio master before creating smaller listening copies.
| playful | |
|---|---|
| everyday | |
| warm | |
| professional |
|
| formal |
playful
full-fidelity
Fits when product language emphasizes preservation of detail
Careful Full-fidelity is a loose quality phrase, not proof of mathematically lossless recovery.
everyday
Fits when identity with the original is the only point readers need
Careful Exact is vague unless the compared representation and criterion are named.
warm
Fits when the reproduction preserves the source's important character
Careful A faithful copy may accept tiny changes and therefore need not be lossless.
professional
bit-perfect
Fits when digital output matches the source bit for bit
Careful Bit-perfect concerns one transfer or playback path, not every property of a format.
professional
uncompressed
Fits when data remains in its direct expanded representation
Careful Uncompressed files can still be altered or incomplete, and lossless compression is possible.
formal
reversible
Fits when a transformation can be undone to recover the starting state
Careful Reversibility may depend on saved metadata and is broader than information encoding.
lossless compression
Lossless compression reduced storage use without changing a single decoded value.
lossless format
The preservation team chose a lossless format with broad software support.
lossless audio
Lossless audio retained the full master for future remastering.
Definitions and examples are written for this site. How words are chosen Recording: Flame, not lame, American accent, from Wikimedia Commons, CC0 Updated
Your browser isn't saving lists, so this one will be cleared when you leave the page.