Noncompressed

Noncompressed refers to data that has not undergone compression intended to reduce its size. In digital systems, compression can be lossy or lossless; noncompressed data remains in its original form, or as close to that form as the recording or capture process yields, without subsequent compression.

In practice, noncompressed data commonly appears in audio as PCM samples stored in formats such as WAV or AIFF; in images as bitmap-like formats such as BMP or uncompressed TIFF; and in some camera raw workflows where image data is stored with minimal processing and without substantial compression. Video can be stored in noncompressed or raw formats, but these are rare for everyday use due to extremely large file sizes.

Advantages include full data fidelity, no generation loss, and no need to decompress during access; disadvantages include much larger file sizes, high storage and bandwidth requirements, and less convenience for distribution or streaming.

Use cases include archival preservation, professional audio editing, medical imaging, and scenarios requiring exact replication of the original capture. When choosing a noncompressed format, considerations include sample depth and rate for audio (for example, 16-bit or 24-bit PCM at 44.1 kHz), color depth and bit depth for images, and the intended workflow.

Note that noncompressed and uncompressed are often used interchangeably, though some contexts differentiate by whether any packaging or lossless wrapping is applied. In general, noncompressed data is selected when maximum fidelity is priority and storage constraints are manageable.