Compressing AVCHD Files

[Robert M Wright]

I was just experimenting with 7-Zip, and compressed an AVCHD m2ts file (that I generated with Edius 5). I was able to compress the file to 82% of the original file size using "Ultra" compression level, "LZMA" compression method, with dictionary size of 64MB and word size of 64.

It strikes me that could be useful for archiving original footage.

 

[Robert M Wright]

Dang, I just tried it on another AVCHD m2ts file, and compressed to 73% of original size.

Anybody want to try this on an AVCHD file generated by the HMC150?

You can get 7-Zip here:

http://www.7-zip.org/download.html

 

[Robert M Wright]

If 75% (or better) of original file size compression could be achieved consistently, for material shot with the HMC150, the contents of a 32GB card could be neatly archived onto a single layer BD-R.

 

[Thomas Lew]

Quality loss?

 

[ullanta]

what types of files are you "generating"? Are these based on actual footage?

 

[Robert M Wright]

There's no quality loss. 7-Zip is similar to WINZIP (but slightly more efficient). I exported AVCHD files from Edius 5, using footage shot originally with an HV20. (I don't have an AVCHD camera.)

 

[Thomas Lew]

OOO I see. Compressing files for later use. That's pretty awesome. I'll revisit this post if I ever start running out of space.