Storing movies

[nocam1334]

I'd like to put some movies on a cd-rw to free up space on my hard drive(until I get an additional hard drive). Is there a way to compress very large files(i.e., 650 MB) to just a few MB? I've tried WinZip, but it doesn't compress very much. I have about 20 to 30 movies of this size, and would like to store them on just a few cds. Any advice or ideas of better methods would be appreciated.

[Thurbs]

What is format? Where would you like to view them if at all again?
Need More Info..

[Shabubu]

There's no garunteed way to save space, for example a text file/word document/executable will compress really well, a video file or jpeg won't cause it's already compressed. There are several progs out there, WinRAR gets better compression that winzip, but it's really a matter of preference.

[nocam1334]

They are a mix of .avi and .mpeg. mostly .avi. I just want to be able to store them for a few weeks so I can still download movies while I look into getting an additional hard drive. I don't want to lose quality in audio or resolution. I haven't put them on vcd yet, so I want to store them and then, when I put them back on the computer, encode and convert them.

[buzzinhornets]

I tried to store 600mb .avi and .mpeg files on a CDRW and when i wanted to get them back later, my drive wouldn't copy such large files back to my harddrive properly, I kept getting a read error. I have an ACER 8432 with 8mb buffer, and a p2 400mhz, with 320mb ram

[ngnr]

buzzinhornets, if you manage to find such a solution, I suggest you will be very rich, very fast.

Seriously, this is pretty much what the whole idea of VCD creation is about - how to compress as much into as little as possible with as little loss in quality as possible. I would expect that the video you have now, with the exception of the avi unless it's DIVX, is as small as you are apt to be able to make it, unless you are willing to let the image degrade. You will never get a 650Mb file into "a few MB" without serious image degradation, if at all, with today's technology. Maybe with MPEG 10? I would think your best option is to buy a few more CD-R's (or CD-RW if you can stand the additional cost) and burn until you are done. Best of luck!