Conversion of AVI's

Editguy43 wrote on 1/14/2010, 9:51 AM

Hello all,
I have some AVI files on my HD that are very large over 300 Gig, I need to save (store) them for the client I tranfered them for, but they are taking up to much room on my editing hard drive, is there a way to batch compress them to another format to reduce the size. I have not had this problem before and am not fimiliar with all the codecs and compression software.

PaulB

Comments

dcrandall wrote on 1/14/2010, 10:17 AM

500GB Hard Disk Drives can be purchased for around $50. Why would you want to bother re-compressing your AVI files thereby loosing quality in the process?
-Dan

PerroneFord wrote on 1/14/2010, 10:55 AM

There are a number of things you can do, but we'll need more information to help. The biggest thing being, what is your client going to use them for? The second is to come to some understanding of what kind of AVIs they are. Saying they are AVI files is like us asking you what you drive and you saying a "blue car". Make and model would be more helpful... if that makes sense.

If you do not know what kind of files they are, open Vegas, browse to the files and click on one of them. Vegas will tell you what they are.

Editguy43 wrote on 1/14/2010, 4:37 PM

They are:
Video: 02:00:46.473, 29.970 fps interlaced, 720x480x24, DV
Audio: 02:00:46.473, 32,000 Hz, 16 Bit, Stereo, Uncompressed
As far as the client he may want to have peices taken out (like birthdays, events, christmas and others) and edited for each child to have thier memories. I just thought that compressing them for storage would be one way to conserve space and not have to use more hard drives.

PerroneFord wrote on 1/14/2010, 4:52 PM

Well, if they are already DV based SD files, there's not a lot more compression you can do to them without losing quite a bit of quality. I could make some recommendations like using MJ2K or Cineorm, but you'd have to buy the software to do that, and you'd get maybe half your space back. Hardly worth it. You could buy a 1TB drive for what Cineform would cost you.

Editguy43 wrote on 1/14/2010, 8:59 PM

Thanks guys, that is what I kinda thought so I will get out one of my older HD's and back it up that way.

Thanks

musicvid10 wrote on 1/15/2010, 5:27 AM

You can always store them on mini DV tapes.

MarkWWWW wrote on 1/15/2010, 6:15 AM

Hmm, something doesn't add up here.

According to your message the file is a 2 hour DV file. But a 2 hour DV file should be about 26GB, not the 300GB you mentioned in your original message.

Mark

Chienworks wrote on 1/15/2010, 7:50 AM

I was pondering the same thing. However, perhaps eleven 2 hour DV files would be close to 300GB.

Editguy43 wrote on 1/15/2010, 2:47 PM

I am sorry it is 8 HI 8 tapes and 2 full VHS tapes. all have 2 hours plus a little more on some. The originals.

Plus I have the rendered files that I put on the DVD's

It is all good now a friend gave me a 750 Gig HD and I backed it all up to there.
Paul B