Backing up large capture files

kgresko wrote on 1/26/2004, 8:34 AM
I am wondering if someone who has more experience than I do at NLE could give me their best solution for archiving captured videos.

I am currently outputting to tape the avi's for archiving. I am not sure if this is the most cost effective way to do it, but would be interested in hearing from you pros out there. I was looking for a "Backup Program" that you could archive across multiple DVD's, but I would be afraid to do that since you would be splitting up an avi.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks in advance.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 1/26/2004, 9:21 AM
Do a google search for a program named WinRAR . This can handle splitting up large files to be seamlessly stored on multiple CDs or DVDs.
kgresko wrote on 1/26/2004, 9:41 AM
Do you use this program Chienworks? It appears to be a compression utility. Will that work for video files? What do you do to archive large video captures? From your previous posts you seem to be a very adept and experienced NLE user.
Chienworks wrote on 1/26/2004, 9:58 AM
I downloaded it a long time ago and tried it out once or twice, back when all i had was a CD burner. You can have it save without compression (probably a good idea) if you wish. The nice thing about it is that it will split files up across multiple discs, which other compressors like WinZip won't do.

I usually never have extremely large files to back up. A standard DVD data disc can hold files up to 2GB without going to UDF format. This is enough for 9 minutes of DV .avi and i rarely have clips that long. A UDF format disc can hold a 4.3GB file which is almost 20 minutes of DV. What i usually do is burn data discs in Nero and manually group sets of files together to fill each DVD blank as fully as possible, then delete the files i've just burned. Repeat until all files are saved.

I rarely ever backup a finished DV .avi file from a project render unless the whole project is under 20 minutes. If i've still got all the source files and project file backed up, i can always regenerate the output file again if it's necessary. So far it's rarely ever been necessary. After i've finished printing a few VHS copies and burning a DVD i rarely ever need the rendered AVI file again.

While WinRAR does look like a nifty utility for large files, i'd be wary of being able to recover the whole file from the pieces if for any reason WinRAR became unavailable.
Former user wrote on 1/26/2004, 9:59 AM
If you want a program to split files, look for HJSPLIT. IT is freeware that will split files, without compression, into any size you want. YOu can then burn that to a CD or DVD.

Dave T2