Storing large video with rar files?

[devinemi83]

Okay I know this is an odd question. I have only a cdrw drive, cant afford a dvdrw drive. I am gonna be getting a newgroup account but I see many movies on there are in the 700-900MP range. And since a cdr only hold 700 at most there a problem. I cant reencode(old ass computer) and I dont wanna hack up the movie to fit or cut the file to go onto 2 cdrs. What I wanted to do was use winrar to span into 2 archive files 1 movie. Where if you copied both rars to the HD you could unzip them into the 1 file again. Example 900MB movie go into a 700 and 200MB rar.

Are rars dependable? I made a spanning rar already and it worked perfectly. But I wanted to know if rars are dependable to store on cdrs for a long time. Do they corrupt easily? I know my cdrs(TDK) are safe and stable so they arent my worry.

[redwudz]

There isn't much advantage to a .rar file for your purposes. If the idea was to shrink the files (I think you just want to split them instead.), you will find it hard to compress already compressed files. I would just avoid doing anything other than splitting them into two parts, and then you would be able to watch them without unraring all the time. .rar files are more for sending multiple parts of a file and rejoining them later. Once a file is put onto a CD, the only thing that would corrupt it is damage to the CD, and that same thing would happen to a .rar file, although you might have a slight chance of recovering it.

[flaninacupboard]

last time i checked newsgroup movies come in chunks anyway, no?

[devinemi83]

I dont want to compress. I just want to be able to split them without modifying the original file.

[piano632]

Have you considered using 90-99 min. discs? Of course, your burner must support them first and they are a bit substandard. I think they can hold 870mb or something. I've never used them myself, so I can't comment on reliability.

[devinemi83]

My local shops dont carry them sadly. They only carry 700MB cdrs. And I have always been comfortable with TDK quality.

[redwudz]

devinemi83: I don't want to discourage you. As stated, most newsgroup files are seperated into small parts. If you have no overpowering urge to see them immediately, just save the parts and join them later. I use a simple program called 'Filemerger' that easily joins every file I have encountered in newsgroups. It's freeware. You could save the parts and join them later. Once they are saved to a CD, they will last as long as the CD, which for a good quality CD could be ten years or more.

[JeffroTa]

I have seen very few movie posts where the files were not already sized to fit on a CD-R or multiple CD-Rs, if that is how the movie is formatted. For example, if it is a DIVX or XVID encoded AVI, the movie will usually be around 700MB in size or multiples thereof. If it is VCD or SVCD, the bin/cue image file or files (usually 2) are 800MB in size and will fit on a CD-R.

Read this:
https://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?link=8

[devinemi83]

Yeah I know the size of a vcd and svcd isnt the main factor and I am glad about that LOL. But most of the movies I have found are in either divx or xvid format. One movie I saw that I wanted was listed as being 5200MB, obviously a DVD rip at that size, it would be pointless to download that one. I was just curious of ways to store a large movie file without modifying the file itself.

Guess I am spoiled but I hate movies cut into 2 parts LOL