Storage problem. Any ideas?

[solsurfer]

I have a Studio DC10 plus capture card that I've used to edit home videos taken with my video camera. The problem is these video files are HUGE (for example, one 15 minute clip is 1GB)and are filling up my hard drive. I was thinking about buying a CD-R or CD-RW to store these files. Do I need to convert them to VCD first? If I don't will I still be able to edit them once their on the disk, or can I only store the finished product on the disk? What if I do convert them - can you still edit them? Thanks for any suggestions.

[aldus4]

In general - of course you can store them. The problem in your case is how. An AVI file the size of 1GB will cause problems however as the media comes in 650MB (74mins),700MB(80mins) and the new 845MB(+90mins) formats. New DoubleDensity CD writers will be out soon which can hold 1.3MB (148mins). DVD-R(W) with a capacity of 4.6GB (some double sided ones are available as well, meaning a total of 9.2GB) have been on the market for a while, but media and writer drives are still quite expensive. Lastly the new DVD+R(W) drives which will be similar to the DVD-R(W) drives will be out later this year. So much to capacity.

Next your format: I presume your AVI files are of high audio and visual quality. If you would change them to VCD (mpeg1) format you will lose a lot of the quality. If you change them to mpeg2 format, either SVCD, XSVCD or even up to near DVD quality, your quality will be better - but at the expense of that you will need more disk space. If you want to change different things on your original captures at a later date I think it may be advisable if you cut your avi's in such a way that they fit on the media,you want to store them on. This way you'll later have no regrets. But in the end...it's up to you!

[ktnwin]

There are two ways:
1) capture at a lower resolution, this is use less disk space
2) buy bigger hard drive. For video editing, it is always worth to get bigger drive.
Storing on CD-R won't help because the files are too big.
You may want to encode to VCD or SVCD to burn on CD-R anyway, dont' you?