[qarl]

> I certainly hope not. Not unless it is deterministic and much much higher quality.

You're not comparing fairly. The author is intentionally using low-res images to illustrate how the compression works. You should compare these to, say, a JPEG compression at the same resolution and same bitrate. I think you'll find that this technique is quite an improvement to the compressions you already know and love.

[mrob]

JPEG has the great advantage that all JPEG artifacts look like JPEG artifacts. Newer codecs create artifacts that can be mistaken for part of the original image. That's a heavy price to pay for improved compression efficiency.

[drfloyd51]

You’ve already chosen to go lossy. You can’t trust any pixel in the image to be true.

[croon]

I think the hinted implication is that jpeg artifacts rarely look like something else. If these can, I think the distinction is relevant.

[F3nd0]

Unlike image bits, trust isn’t binary!