Hard drive compression for vids

wolfric

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_compression#Standalone_utilities
Here's a quick list of some on wikipedia. I haven't researched any of them yet though . I've been doing googles for which compression is more suitable and found nothing concrete. I have a media pc with an external ntfs hard drive. Want to put some compression on it (already have the windows one which doesn't do much).

I've looked up some articles siting that certain compressions do more for video than documents for example. A review of the windows compression said it wasn't really that much use anyway.

Does anyone have any suggestions?
cheers

Overheal

you could use one drive for documents and another for media then use 2 different compression methods.

I dont bother. slows **** down, its great when archiving but other than that. I dont use all the 1TB I have between all my stuff already.

wolfric

Overheal wrote: »

you could use one drive for documents and another for media then use 2 different compression methods.

I dont bother. slows **** down, its great when archiving but other than that. I dont use all the 1TB I have between all my stuff already.

I only need compression for videos i don't have any documents. It's an external drive full of videos. The question was which compression to use for videos

Voodu Child

Video files are already highly compressed. Trying to use some sort of non-specific data compression on them is mostly pointless.

The only useful form of video compression is to transcode them using a more efficient video codec. Which could take hours per movie and requires knowledge of what youre doing, and hands-on treatment for each movie. In the long run (assuming you have a lot of movies) its easier/cheaper/quicker to just buy more storage.

Webmonkey

Can you be more specific with 'video' - is it raw AVI? or is it encoded video/movies such as DivX etc because encoded videos are already compressed and all redundant data is removed. I don't think you'll achieve much compressing these. Not only is redundant data removed by compression, you suffer a loss so a lot of frames are removed except the I frames for prediction of frames between them or what ever other methods they use...

It's a pointless act since hard drive space is so cheap these days.

vibhutirs

Given the nature of videos, one size doesn't fits all. You can try different compression techniques for your video file. Of course, it depends what kind of quality you want to retain.
Are you looking for lossless or lossy compression?

I am presuming, you are looking for lossless compression:
You should try mpeg4, there are plenty of utilities out there for that.

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/codecs

ED E

Voodu Child wrote: »

Video files are already highly compressed. Trying to use some sort of non-specific data compression on them is mostly pointless.

The only useful form of video compression is to transcode them using a more efficient video codec. Which could take hours per movie and requires knowledge of what youre doing, and hands-on treatment for each movie. In the long run (assuming you have a lot of movies) its easier/cheaper/quicker to just buy more storage.

Not necessarily, there are apps that you can batch process, that said the one I use gives mixed results on customized codecs

Either he's an amateur cinematographer OR(the more likely option) they're all 700MB DivX .avi's. I dont need to elaborate on that I'd wager.

If its the latter there is nothing really you can do. Unless they are for portable devices only the video is compressed pretty much as efficiently as possible with current technology.

What I'd suggest doing is slowly buy 1TB drives as you need them. They become cheaper by the day and as its not valuable content its no big loss if one dies so you can buy cheap slow 5400rpm's with low caches and transfer speeds. Watch out for clearance deals and grab 2-3 if you spot a bargain.

BadCharlie

I compressed a 1TB harddrive of movies the other week. Ended up only saving about 10gigs in space. So u can make your own mind up if it was worth it or not :rolleyes:

wolfric

mind sharing what that compression is?

Voodu Child

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

Not necessarily, there are apps that you can batch process, that said the one I use gives mixed results on customized codecs

I'll rephrase it then: To do it properly requires hands-on treatment of each encode. I certainly wouldn't batch-process the encoding of a whole HDD of movies using a 1-click app.

OR they're all 700MB DivX .avi's.
....
If its the latter there is nothing really you can do. Unless they are for portable devices only the video is compressed pretty much as efficiently as possible with current technology.

This isn't correct.

DivX offers relatively poor compression by modern standards. You could certainly compress it ~50-70% further if you wanted, using a more efficient codec (ie H.264 high-profile). Although as ive said above, it would take hours per movie, knowledge of the encoding process and CQ encoding, and hands-on treatment/verification of each encode (in order to achieve near-lossless results, which of course should be the goal in this scenario). Its simply not worth it given HDD prices.

PogMoThoin

Just buy a bigger hard drive, 1 and 2TB ones are for peanuts these days

ED E

Voodu Child wrote: »

I'll rephrase it then: To do it properly requires hands-on treatment of each encode. I certainly wouldn't batch-process the encoding of a whole HDD of movies using a 1-click app.



This isn't correct.

DivX offers relatively poor compression by modern standards. You could certainly compress it ~50-70% further if you wanted, using a more efficient codec (ie H.264 high-profile). Although as ive said above, it would take hours per movie, knowledge of the encoding process and CQ encoding, and hands-on treatment/verification of each encode (in order to achieve near-lossless results, which of course should be the goal in this scenario). Its simply not worth it given HDD prices.

You sir know your encoding:)


You could always build one of these: http://helmer.sfe.se/

slowlydownwards

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

You could always build one of these: http://helmer.sfe.se/

:eek::eek::eek:

Love the "mini" clusters!!! Why is he bumping it up to 4k? That's nearly 8X the 1080p!!!

PogMoThoin

slowlydownwards wrote: »

:eek::eek::eek:

Love the "mini" clusters!!! Why is he bumping it up to 4k? That's nearly 8X the 1080p!!!

Its a prototype for the next generation Xbox 4000

ED E

slowlydownwards wrote: »

:eek::eek::eek:

Love the "mini" clusters!!! Why is he bumping it up to 4k? That's nearly 8X the 1080p!!!

I suspect he generates it in that kind of res, his animations look quite unique.

slowlydownwards

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Its a prototype for the next generation Xbox 4000

In the words of guru Ballmer himself: "Throw your 360 away, it's a piece of s**t."

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

his animations look quite unique.

... to put it mildly!! He must be doing some sort of a project for RED!!!



Apologies OP, this is veering away slightly, but now that big numbers are being thrown around, want to mention this little thing. Anybody that hasn't already seen the movie "Gamer" (c*4p movie btw), go and see it, purely for the display setup in that young lad's house... apologies again.