What does "Rate-distortion Trade-off" mean?

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The rate-distortion trade-off is a balance between how much data you use to store information and how much quality you lose in that information. When you compress images or videos, you want to make the file smaller (lower rate) but also want to keep it looking good (lower distortion).

When compressing data, a higher rate means more data is kept, which usually results in better quality. However, this also means bigger file sizes. On the other hand, if you choose a lower rate to save space, you may lose quality in the process, making the image or video look worse.

Finding the right point on this balance is important, especially in technologies used for compressing media. The goal is to achieve the best quality with the least amount of data. Different methods and tools are developed to improve this balance, allowing for better performance when compressing images and videos without sacrificing too much quality.