GateTrue

What each generator documents about marking its output

Lossy compression: the test an in-picture signal faces

Lossy compression discards picture detail to save space. Every delivery pipeline applies it, and it is the transformation an in-picture invisible signal has to survive in order to be worth anything. As of 2026-09-22.

What compression removes, and what has to hide from itCompression works by discarding detail a viewer will not notice, which is close to a description of where an invisible in-picture signal has to live. Surviving it is the central claim such a scheme makes, and it is a claim this register records rather than tests.One operation on the pictureWhat is discardedPicture detail a viewer is unlikely to notice, which is thewhole method.What has to hide thereAn invisible in-picture signal, imperceptible and durable atonce.What degrades and staysA burned-in mark, made of the same picture data as the subject.What is unaffectedAnything in the container: manifests, metadata keys, attachedrecords.The claim is recorded; no file is run
Fig. 1 Designed to stand up to a transformation is a statement of intent. A measurement would require running files, which nothing here does.
How this register uses the term, and what it excludes. Written 2026-09-22.
The termLossy compression
What it namesDiscarding picture detail to reduce file size
What it is notRemoving attached information, which is a separate operation
Where the register uses itA robustness claim, recorded as the vendor's wording

Inclusion rule. Words this site uses in a narrow sense, where the ordinary sense would lead a reader to misread a cell. No vendor statement appears on this page. Order. Fixed order: what the word names, what it excludes, then where it is used here.

1Why it is the hard case for an invisible mark

An invisible signal has to be imperceptible and durable at the same time. Compression works by removing what a viewer will not notice, which is close to a description of where such a signal has to hide. Surviving it is the central technical claim any scheme of this kind makes.

One entry in this register names compression among the transformations its scheme is designed to stand up to, alongside cropping, added filters and changed frame rates. That is a claim recorded as made, in the vendor's own wording.

2What the register does with a robustness claim

Records it and does not test it. Designed to stand up to a transformation is a statement of intent and engineering effort, not a measurement, and the difference between the two is exactly the difference between this site and a laboratory.

Where a reader wants a measurement, the honest answer is that no public page in this register contains one and this site produces nothing by running files. Naming the missing sentence beats estimating around it.

3What it does not touch

Attached blocks. Compression operates on picture data, so a manifest in the container is unaffected by how hard the picture was squeezed, and a metadata strip is unaffected by how gently. Two operations, two layers, no overlap.

A burned-in mark degrades and survives: heavy compression makes it uglier and leaves it legible, because it is made of the same picture data as the subject and cannot be removed without removing that too.

Nothing on this page is a vendor statement; the values it helps read are on the support table, with the page and the date each one was read from. See also the machine-readable column, what survives an export. Nearby terms: frame-rate change, composite step, intermediate clip.