Does anyone know of a lossless archiving program? I need to compress GIANT (~10-20GB) AVI files for storage. I need to be able to extract the exact DV-AVI data that I put into it. It would be nice if it were made some reputable vendor or party as this is personal video.
I tried a lossless codec a while ago called Huffy YUV (google it) but didn’t have much luck with it since my vid editors at the time didn’t like it. Might work for you tho.
Otherwise, maybe just good ol’ zip?
(BTW, I archive my anims in PNG frames - lossless compression and the flexibility to encode for the specific situation - except in interlaced applications… maybe those are going the way of the dinosaurs, tho, eh? 
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I tried Huffy YUV in VirtualDub, but I was getting a projected file size 3 times the original video.
These are home videos of my family that I am compressing. I thought maybe some high performance archiver could cut the size, but WinRAR wasn’t doing too good of a job with it. I remembered that just after I posted this, when we recorded the videos on harddrive, I recorded them as DV-AVI (which is a compressed format). One of my test files, WinUHA was able to shave off 153.6MB. But it has a 2GB archive limit.
I don’t understand your request: you have some DV tapes and want to back up, right?
Let’s assume that:
- the recorded movie on the tape is obviously in DV format, which is NOT a lossless format, so the source itself is already compressed.
- aquiring with a firewire port the video to the PC outputs a AVI with DV codec inside which is the exact copy of the tape data.
- converting it to a lossless format (and Huffy YUV is the best) won’t obviously add any detail to the video but will increase size (because as said before, DV is a compressed codec).
- converting to another codec to get a smaller size is possible only applying another compression on it (like excellent Xvid) but quality will be affected. If you use high quality settings the decreased quality will be minimal.
so, what’s the point? why you want to save something compressed in a lossless format?
Yeah, if you have something that’s already in DV video, then you can’t get it any smaller with a lossless codec, since DV video is lossy.
If it’s 10GB of video, and you ripped it right off your DV device, then it sounds like you have a lot of video (3 hrs, my guess?). If that’s the case, welcome to the world of digital video editing; you need a LOT of storage space.
The DV codecs compress each frame individually (like a JPEG sequence). I would recommend encoding the files in a high-bitrate MPEG4 codec, like XviD , Microsoft MPEG4, H.264, etc. It should be high enough that you don’t notice the difference.
Just remember that when you do that it might be harder for other video editors to read those files correctly. When I used Premier, I could only effectively scrub the video for accurate cuts using DV codec videos, because there are no keyframes (see previous paragraph).
So, if you plan on editing these later, keep them in the DV codec. If they are finallized and you just want a backup, and there’s no way you can/want to back something up that big, then you can go ahead and do an MPEG4 codec, and probably an MPEG2 so you can put it on a DVD. Otherwise, you’ll havet to pay the price.
For backups, I’d recommend getting a dual-layer DVD burner (they are cheap now). They can hold 8GB or so. If you just have one video file, you can split it up so that it can fit on two of those discs.
Thank you for the replies. Yes, the avi files are a couple hours of home video. I have a 250GB drive filled with video and was trying to back it up on a slightly smaller drive. Oh well, I could back up a few of the videos.
Again thanks for the help.
Just let your original miniDV tapes be the backup (don’t overwrite them - they’re cheap). Whatever you capture to your PC is only for producing edited footage for output to an alternate media, such as DVD. If you must “backup” your edited footage without losing quality, most consumer editors allow you to “record” back to miniDV tapes in your camcorder via the same firewire connection. Tape backup’s still a cost-effective method.
Just let your original miniDV tapes be the backup (don’t overwrite them - they’re cheap). Whatever you capture to your PC is only for producing edited footage for output to an alternate media, such as DVD. If you must “backup” your edited footage without losing quality, most consumer editors allow you to “record” back to miniDV tapes in your camcorder via the same firewire connection. Tape backup’s still a cost-effective method.[/quote]
These videos are off of VHS. We recorded them to the computer using a borrowed camcorder that was able to convert between the two. The reason that a backup would be nice is, I have accidently deleted one of these files. I would like to back up the rest so I do repeat the same mistake during editing.
A couple of thots: you still have the “tape backup” in the original VHS tapes, right? You can always re-capture (see below.) Secondly, if your original is only VHS quality, you’re not going to even notice any quality loss due to a lossy compression like DivX or Xvid. Your source resolution (VHS) is 320x240 or less (roughly) and interlaced to boot. I’d say, go ahead and crunch it down. You’ll likely not even notice the difference.
There are some pretty cheap USB 2.0 conversion devices available. I’ve used and could recommend an AverMedia unit that’s less than a $80 I think… probably not something you want to invest in for just one project tho…
Bummer on the accidental delete. I did that on an animation project a long time ago (before I knew much about video resolutions & compression qualities, etc…) and kicked myself repeatedly for it. (I ended up re-doing it in blender, tho, so it came out better in the end!) I know your pain, my friend! :-? :x 