Methods, devices and computer program products for lossless data compression and decompression

1. A lossless data compression method, the method comprising:

receiving a series of data segments of a known length and a known characteristic,

pre-processing the series of data segments to generate a series of differential data comprising a first value, one or more differential values ( 530 ) and a last differential value, by repeated delta-coding of the series of data segments until a sum of absolute values of the differential values is minimized or below a predefined or configurable average threshold,

dividing, based on the known characteristic, the series of differential data into at least two blocks of differential data,

encoding at least one block of differential data using Rice encoding, thereby providing at least one block of encoded differential data, and

generating a data packet comprising said at least one blocks of encoded differential data, at least one block of differential data not having been encoded and a delta-coding iteration indicator, indicating the number of times each of the differential values have been delta-coded.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the known characteristic of the series of data segments is that a variance at one end of the series of data segments is higher than a variance at the other end of the series of data segments.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein in the step of generating, the data packet further comprises one or more k-parameters wherein each k-parameter is associated with a block of encoded differential data.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein the step of encoding further comprises Rice-encoding at least one block of differential data with an associated k-parameter, wherein the k-parameter is determined by calculating an average number of bits of the differential values of the associated block of differential data.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein, in the step of dividing, one block of differential data contains only the last differential value and the differential values and the first value are comprised in at least one other block of differential data.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the step of encoding comprises not encoding the block of differential data comprising the last differential value.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the characteristics of the series of data segments is that of a digital FIR audio filter.

8. A portable electronic device comprising a controller, a memory and a communications interface, wherein the controller is configured to retrieve a hearing profile adapted for a user from the memory and subject the hearing profile to the lossless data compression method of claim 1 to generate a data packet, wherein the controller is further configured to transmit the data packet to a second portable electronic device via the interface.

9. A computer program product configured to, when executed by a controller, perform the lossless data compression method of claim 1 .

10. A lossless data decompression method for decompressing a data packet generated by the lossless data compression method of claim 1 , the method comprising:

extracting blocks of data from the data packet wherein at least one block of data is a block of encoded differential data, at least one block of un-encoded differential data, and a delta-coding iteration indicator, indicating the number of times each of the differential values in the data packet was delta-coded,

decoding the at least one block of encoded differential data, providing one or more blocks of differential data,

appending the one or more blocks of differential data into one series of differential data comprising a first value, a series of differential data and a last differential value, and

post-processing the series of differential data based on the first value by delta-decoding the series of differential data the same number of times as indicated by the delta-coding iteration indicator to generate a series of data segments.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein

the data packet further comprises one or more k-parameters wherein each k-parameter is associated with a block of encoded differential data,

the step of extracting comprises extracting said one or more k-parameters from the data packet, and

the step of decoding further comprises decoding blocks of encoded differential data using their associated k-parameters.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein

one block of differential data comprised in the data packet contains only the last differential value and the differential values are comprised in at least one other block of differential data of the data packet, and

the step of extracting further comprises extracting one block of data containing the last differential value and at least one other block of data comprising one or more differential values and the first value.

13. The method of claim 10 , wherein

the block of differential data comprising the last differential value comprised in the data packet is one of said at least one block of un-encoded differential data, and

the step of decoding is not applied to the block of data comprising the last differential value.

14. A portable electronic device comprising a controller, a memory and a communications interface, wherein the controller is configured to receive a data packet via the communications interface and subject the data packet to the lossless data decompression method of claim 10 , to generate a series of data segments, wherein the controller is further configured to store the series of data segments to the memory as a hearing profile.

15. A computer program product configured to, when executed by a controller, perform the lossless data decompression method of claim 10 .