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    Questions about file compression

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by The Streets, Dec 30, 2008.

  1. The Streets

    The Streets Notebook Consultant

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    OS: Vista Home Premium 32bit

    I have the entire series of a TV show stored on my hard drive. The seasons are split by folder, and all told the combined memory footprint of the folders comes to 40GB+

    Basically I want to compress these folders into one zipped file, so that the memory footprint on my computer will be reduced - preferably by as much as half, if possible - but will still allow easy access to each individual season folder and episode file.

    Now, I know I can highlight the folders, right-click and select "send to compressed (zipped) folder" but the compression process is long and I want to be sure that I'd be getting a significant memory reduction before I do so.

    If not, are there any other software you'd recommend for doing this?

    Thanks.

    PS. I may have expired the trial versions of WinRAR and WinZip, but I recently re-installed my OS so maybe I'd be able to use them again?
     
    The Streets, Dec 30, 2008
    #1
  2. davepermen

    davepermen Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    your movies are allready compressed, lossy to be exact. compressing them further, losslessly with zip or rar or what ever is not really possible.

    btw. you can continue to use winrar or winzip after the trial. it just pops up a message box each time. or use 7-zip it's free and can handle rar and zip just as well.

    your memory reduction will at most be around 1 percent.
     
    davepermen, Dec 30, 2008
    #2
  3. qhn

    qhn Notebook User

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    Unless there is some good commercial compression app for videos and pictures, I have personally not seen any significant gains when zipping videos and pictures with any of the tools you mentioned above.

    Back the files to an external drive is the best alternative.

    cheers ...
     
    qhn, Dec 30, 2008
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  4. The Streets

    The Streets Notebook Consultant

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    Cheers guys. S'pose I'll have to invest in a good (cheap!) external hard drive.
     
    The Streets, Dec 30, 2008
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  5. kanehi

    kanehi Notebook Deity

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    Compressing an already compressed file doesn't save you a significant difference in size. An external HDD is your best bet. You can get a 1TB external for around $150.
     
    kanehi, Dec 30, 2008
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  6. tdf

    tdf Notebook Consultant

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    Converting your files to rmvb format (RealVideo) will usually reduce the file sizes to about 1/2-1/3 of the original movie while keeping the same quality. It's a very slow process though especially with 40Gb of stuff, so getting an external hard drive, as mentioned above, is probably a better idea.
     
    tdf, Dec 30, 2008
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  7. chipmoney

    chipmoney Notebook Evangelist

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    chipmoney, Dec 30, 2008
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  8. cloud_nine

    cloud_nine Notebook Evangelist

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    As others have noted, you won't get any significant gains when compressing video to zip or rar.

    You can get significant gains if you convert the video and audio to a H.264/AAC (or any other more efficient codec). Only drawbacks is that it takes more processing power to play these files and that it takes time to convert your existing files to this format.
     
    cloud_nine, Dec 30, 2008
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  9. crash

    crash NBR Assassin

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    Since you've already figured out a solution, I'd just like to chime in and say that you should consider 7-Zip for your archiving needs. It's free and works very well: http://www.7-zip.org/
     
    crash, Dec 30, 2008
    #9