Zipping folders for archive purposes?

M

MadPainter

Member
Hi,
I am trying to work out a space efficient method for archiving 1) my original AVCHD footage as well as 2) my finished projects with associated files and folders. I am using an HMC150, I edit in PPro CS4 and do color correction and fx in AE CS4. I have done a search on this forum to see if there is any info on zipping folders for archive purposes. So far I have found nothing specifically related to zip archiving.

My question is twofold:
First, I was wondering if there would be any harm in using an app like 7-Zip to compress the 'private' folder to optimize storage space on my backup hard drive. On the flip side, would there even be any noticeable savings in storage space since AVCHD is already highly compressed? I am reluctant to try this on the footage I have at the moment in case the process could damage my footage.

Second, would use of a zipping program to compress my project folder result in bad things for my master or any other files contained within my project?

If anyone has any thoughts on this, please chime in. Thanks.
 
7-Zip uses lossless compression, so while you may not save much (if any) space, you will have your project in one nice neat file. When you uncompress (provided you preserve the folder structure) you have what you started with again. All files and folders should be identical.

In order to prove this to yourself, make a copy of your card image to somewhere else on your HDD and compress that. Delete the copy folder structure and then uncompress the archive to a new location. Use that as the source of footage for testing.
 
It really depends on the file as to what percentage it will shave off the size. I tend to think that avchd is a very tight file and won't shrink very much at all. Guessing about 10-25% less. You'll need to test to find out for sure.
If it were me, I would buy an inexpensive hard drive and an external case that you can swap drives in and out of. They're pretty cheap these days and 500 gigs of AVCHD will get you a lot. Zipping and unzipping sounds like a real pain, especially if you lost something and need to unzip a bunch of stuff to find it.
 
I'm guessing you might save 1-2%. It's worth a shot but I know compressed images and music don't crush much further than 1 or 2%. They are already compressed.

My hesitation with zip files is that I've seen far too many become corrupt. Especially if you're going to transfer it multiple times, or across a network, it is not too uncommon for the zip package to become corrupted. If that happens, everything inside it is toast.

Personally I wouldn't bother. I don't expect you'll be saving much space.
 
Thanks for the info everybody. It sounds like the space savings would be minimal and the potential for catastrophic loss is high enough that it is not worth doing.
 
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