Windows 7: Image Compression

I haven't been backing up my video collection, due to it's size (~1565GBs), because I didn't want to dedicate that much hard drive space to that task, but after looking at the compression options in TI, that could be reduced to ~898GBs, so that it would fit on a 1TB drive, with some room to spare. The question is whether compressing them would effect the quality of the videos after restoring them?

No, It doesn't with my imaging apps. - pretty sure the same would be true of Acronis.

That is a pretty good compression level for video files.

What will you do if they turn out to be a lot larger?

At this point, all that I can do is to go by what TI has given as figures for the estimated compressed size at maximum compression. I wouldn't be surprised if that estimate is based on typical data compression, such as with backing up the OS, and may not be valid for video files. However, if it won't fit on a 1TB drive, I will probably continue as I am now, with only a partial backup formed by having only part of the videos on an uncompressed drive on my secondary rig.

I think that what I have now is relatively secure, but considering the amount of time that I've spent encoding and collecting the videos, I wouldn't be happy losing them.

EDIT: Are you suggesting that the video files will not compress much?

I wouldn't be surprised to find they don't compress to half original size as Acronis suggests.

TBH I only have a couple which have been backed up as part of a much larger image - so can't give you a figure.

I don't think they compress much, tho - a bit like jpg's.

I won't be able to experiment with this, until my 1TB returns from RMA, but I have a feeling that you are right about the compression ratio. If that is the case, then my only option would be to get another 2TB drive for backup, but if I did that, there wouldn't really be a need for compression anyway...at least until my collection grows a lot bigger.

It would be nice if BD drives and media were much cheaper than they are. I did find an new LG BD burner for ~$100, but the cost of media still makes it prohibitive to use them for such a large image.

Yep bd would be a bit pricey for that amount of data.

As mentioned, they are already pretty well compressed and, depending on the compression algorithm, could take up more space.

TI compression won't do much better than zip compression, so why don't you try compressing one inti a zip folder with windows and see what you get?

Don't count on those compressing. But if they do, you aren't going to lose any quality when you extract them back out.

btw, dye based BD or any kind of dye based discs are not that reliable. I would not count on them as a sole copy for my precious files.

I keep multiple USB drives with my critical data, keep them offsite.