Zipping Video Files!

Safoora · Jul 2nd, 2009, 11:48 PM

AOA guys,

I have an urgent question to ask, please try to help.
I have about 100GB of video that I need to send to one of my friends, who's living in another country. I thought of burning them on DVDs, but each DVD can only hold about 5GB-that's a LOT of DVDs to burn! I know that I can send them in an external hard drive as well, however, that would be HELLA expensive. Is there anyway I can zip these video files and make them smaller, that way I'll need to burn less DVDs OR if I have to go to the external route, atleast it'll be cheaper?

Please let me know ASAP, I kinda need to send them urgently. Thanks-

teggy · Jul 2nd, 2009, 11:55 PM

KGB Archiver is a real decent compression tool, and if you google you can find other similar utilities that are designed to break down a huge folder/file into small pieces, and then when the person extracts one, they all chain together and extract as a whole.

Good luck

Another one: GSplit, it does what i described above.

Safoora · Jul 3rd, 2009, 12:23 AM

JazakAllah Khair for replying!

However, I think I may have the exact opposite problem (or maybe not?). I have smaller video files (~4-15 GBs each, 25 of them in all) which I need to compress into something even smaller. These are lecture videos that she needs in order to prepare for an exam. It's a total of 95 GB that needs to be sent. I still don't know if its possible to burn them all on DVDs?

teggy · Jul 3rd, 2009, 12:32 AM

Wa iyyakum.

The most efficient way to burn that data would be BluRay. Each BluRay disc can hold upto 25GB. But you have to have BluRay discs and a BluRay burner.

Otherwise, that compression solution should work nonetheless.
You can try compressing them into rar using winrar as well. But it will take time (depending on size of each file), and when it comes to burning you'd still face the same issue. The compression might save you a couple of disks. Hard to estimate without actually trying first. Plus i'm not sure how much smaller it will get after compressing

Or

You can upload them onto an online storage service (they usually run $10-15/month for decent amount of space), and your friend can then download it at her end.

So many options....not enough time

Safoora · Jul 3rd, 2009, 12:43 AM

I realize that I'm terribly slow at this and sound very stupid, since computers are not my field at all. But when you say break it down into pieces and compress, wouldn't I still have to store it somewhere to send? Or do you mean that it would be considerably smaller so I can store in less discs?

I'm going to download KGB Archiver 1.2.1.24 and see how much it can compress. Also, can you further compress an already compressed file?

teggy · Jul 3rd, 2009, 12:45 AM

Smaller files: Yes you'll probably still have to have discs, may be not as many. But i doubt you'll cut down by half.

Compressing an already compressed file: Haven't tried it personally. Try a small one and see if it can become smaller yet, but extract it to see and make sure no data is lost. Sometimes super-compression can result in corrupted or lost data. So you don't want to push it too much.

Some people claim to have been able to compress 10GB into 1GB and 1GB into 10MB using KGB Archiver, but i'm not sure how true that is. Please do post to let us know how it went

PS: We're all learning, so no worries there.

Safoora · Jul 3rd, 2009, 01:11 AM

Okay I'm scared, it says compression might take upto 75% of your physical memory, is this normal? Also, in archive format its giving me the option of either KGB or Zip--I would rather do Zip since I don't think my friend would know anything about KGB but when I do Zip it gives me a drop down with archive spanning and three sets of random (or so it seems) numbers to choose from, which I have NO IDEA what they are for?

OMG that Bluray thing sounds like magic right now, only if I had the burner =(

teggy · Jul 3rd, 2009, 01:20 AM

When compressing, you'll have the option in a drop down menu where it says "Maximum" or something similar, and yes it can hog a lot of your pc resources and busy virtually much of your memory. Best to leave it as an overnight task and let it be.

Again, depending on the size of the file(s) you're trying to compress it can take a long time.

coOoLBreeze · Jul 3rd, 2009, 08:09 PM

Honestly speaking, by a new HDD and send it... If the videos are really important, then it aint that expensive.

Gizzy · Jul 4th, 2009, 06:29 AM

^-- yeah

I was going to say the same!

Buy an external or even internal Hard drive copy all the stuff on it, then send it. And it wont be so hard for both of you. No hassle or packing unpacking huge and numerous files.

Make sure you don't send it by post. Send via courier/DHL etc. So they take extra care of the drive not being damaged