lancer

Ok no idea where this question should go.

My questions is this, I have about 1tb of movies all in .avi format, they are all about 3 hours long or so, they are basically masters for DVD's.

Now i do not want to keep them in the .avi format as they take up so much space, in fact ive now run out of space.

What is the best way to store these, should/could i convert them to another format without losing quality, but saving space?

i should know this and i think i could just convert them to mpeg2's as this is their ultimate format anyway for dvds. but they also sometimes end up on cable tv, so then i need to be able to copy them to dv tape.

any suggestions are helpful.

thanks

luke

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Dark Atheist

if you try and convert them to any format you will lose quality, one way you could retain space is to go through them all and see which you really don't require, bound to be a few in there you don't really want but just grabbed them anyway

lancer

i need every single one, as they also get reproduced and sometimes reordered for cable tv. thanks anyway.

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Dark Atheist

you could buy more storage and use a raided system raid 5,6 1+0 would be your best option, or you could convert one to dvd and see what it would look like.

Last time i did this i used a program called avi2dvd - uses cinema craft encoder, result wasn't too bad

http://www.trustfm.net/divx/SoftwareAvi2Dvd.php

lancer

the thing is i am trying to conserve space, as we will in a few yrs be using about 6tbs just for these movies the rate we are going, which is pretty impossible to back up. so i need to find another solutions like compression or something.

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Johnny

Couldn't you just put them on a dvd ? I know it would be a lot. but, at least they will be backed up. If you have to keep them and have to back them up; that is what I would do. I had to do that with my music. I know it's a pain in the butt, but, it is worth it if you think about it.

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Dark Atheist

i do that with my music - 221 dvds so far

Johnny

I know what you mean carpo. Mine are mostly Flac, the space is nuts, but the quality is awesome !

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Dark Atheist

mp3 on mine - flac = losless, basically just the wav file under a diff name

LordOfLA

only smaller

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Dark Atheist

not by much

lancer

do you realise how many dvds we would be talking about even dl dvd's would be insane. you some kind of nut job man... haha

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Johnny

Hey, I never said I was sane lol .. I know what you mean. But, if that is what you want, then that is what you need to do. I had to do it with my music. I know how many dvd's it can take. But, with how cheap they are now, it's not a bad option.....

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