Best way to save 100s of .AVI files?

[Feiz]

I have a nasty addiction in collecting anime series; some titles can reach up to 300 episodes at 170MB each in AVI format. This means I can’t keep them saved on my PC ‘cause it’s filling up my disk space and now I have to save them on CDs.

A single CD wonÂ’t hold more than 3 of these AVI videos, so IÂ’m not ready to burn 1000 CDs nor delete them and was wondering: is there a better way to store my AVI files? One option I thought of was changing their format from AVI to something less large, for example RM format.

IÂ’m aware that this will degrade the quality of the videos as it takes the files size down to 30MB. Convenient for less required space, but still IÂ’d like to hear any suggestions (if any) on perhaps better methods at storing my videos. Is there an alternative format that is better than AVI or RM for example? What would you do in my case?

Thanks!

 

[b1gapl]

I have a series that's about 200+ episodes and what I did is use blank DVDs.....they easily hold 20+ episodes. You should get a DVD burner if you don't have one. Or get a bigger hard drive. Or compress them like with WinRAR or some other program.

 

[lancec2c30]

ya, I am not sure but is mpeg format smaller??

 

[b1gapl]

Yes mpeg is a smaller format then AVI, but lower quality.

 

[EricB]

Yes mpeg is a smaller format then AVI, but lower quality.

I post the truth about this a few time here (because of all of the myths). most people think that avi are smaller. this new divx avi technically is. but uncompress avi file are huge. an hour uncompress avifile is like 10 gig

mpeg 1 and 2 are compress format. they compressed them to fit movie on dvd disc. mpeg were the original dvd compress format (the first year or so) when an hour and 20 minute movie took 4.7 gig. if the movie was longer you had to switch the side of the disc.

mpeg 2 had superior quality taking the same amout of time, but by then dual layer discs were invented so you didn't have to turn movies over like you did the laser disc

 

[trekkie00]

Ways I save them:

1) I got a new 120gb hard drive on sale at Best Buy. Search for some good deals, and you should be able to find a nice cheap one somewhere.

2) I got a DVD burner and a 50-pack spindle of DVD+Rs. I can fit about thirty episodes per disc, which is about $3 or $4 worth of discs for the 300 episode series.

 

[faek]

Seriously, new hard drive is the BEST way to go. Think of how much anime you could bank then? I got an external 300GB seagate [16mb buffer] 4 months ago for $160... there's PLEANTY of hard drive deals now so it's an affordable investment too. I've got too much anime on my HD and so much else. And external is perfect if you want to take your anime to somebody's house, share it with others, use somebody's dvd burner, etc.

Plus, everybody can use an extra hard drive

[which ones are you watching?? :firstlove ]

 

[EricB]

darn. I was so busy explaining files, I forgot to leave an answer