Solved Any other ways to send large .avi files ?

[Arcadian]

I need to send a series of long family videos in .avi format taken over the holiday break so far totalling about 20GB as soon as possible to some friends in Australia. As this could well become a regular thing putting them all onto DVD and posting them is the obvious answer, but wondering in the meantime if there's a quicker way as uploading to Cloud systems or compressing them as we probably all know takes hours.

Any other options possible even if it means buying something in non .avi format....?

Thanks in advance

 

[HarriePateman]

You could zip the file and put a password on the .ZIP.

Upload to a torrent website and send the link to your family.

Torrents are perfectly legal when used the right way.

 

[Arcadian]

Thanks for the quick reply !

No expert on zips but I did try Winzip and 2 or 3 other zip files but each time the uploading or zipping (?) would have taken hours as well, the same as Skype and Amazon with Cloud, which gave me the impression that there's no way around the length of time it will always take. So presumably torrent is no different....?

Any suggestions anyway on buying something which will record similar large non.avi files but in much quicker upload times ?

Thanks

 

[Arcadian]

Thanks yes I'd thought of that as well but again too time consuming with such future large files....

Easiest and quickest way is the DVD option in the end I think but thanks for the help as I needed to check first

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there

Sometimes people get so absorbed in modern technology they forget a VERY SIMPLE method -- after storing on a USB stick why not simply POST IT (Yes I believe "Snail mail") still exists. !!!

You could even put it on one of those tiny SDHC cards if you don't want to send a USB stick too. The user at the other end simply connects the stick to the computer (or with a micro SDHC card - put it in your phone and connect the phone to the computer. Most phones have provision for a SDHC card).

Note converting an AVI file (or MKV/MP4 files as well) to a playable DVD that works on a standard DVD player isn't an easy task - there's a free LINUX / Windows program called DEVEDE or a windows paid for program called CONVERTXTODVD. Takes a while to perform the conversion too depending on the size of the source.

Note - it's the OPPOSITE to the usual problem of ripping DVD / Blue RAY to mp4 / MKV / AVI. If you want the DVD to be playable on a DVD player you have to create a VIDEODVD and use one of the programs I've mentioned.

Sending regular DVD's IMO is probably the best method - certainly the easiest for the recipients. A normal DVD will store 4.7 GB but you can use dual layer to store more.

Don't waste your time using blank Blu Ray discs - burning those at full HD is a REAL PAIN and expensive and if the player at the other end is incompatible then forget it.


DEVEDE Linux : DeVeDe

DEVEDE Windows - no longer supported but still works fine on W8 / W10.

DeVeDe, DVD Authoring, Video to DVD/VCD/SVCD/CVD/Divx Software | majorsilence

ConvertXtoDVD (Paid for software) ConvertXtoDVD - AVI to DVD Video Converter to burn on DVD

On the rare times I've needed to make physical DVD's DEVEDE woks fine both on Linux and Windows.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Arcadian]

Hi Jimbo excellent yes thanks a lot !!

I'd forgotten all about memory sticks but remember thinking ages ago that they would be a great way to send info, but most embarrassingly hadn't thought of cards as all the videos and pics are still stored on a 32 GB card in my camera !!

Taking things further and best of all, once they've downloaded and finally formatted them they can then send their videos by return back to me which I can then insert into my camera to download as well and so on !

Tacka igen !

 

[Callender]

Sending large files

I know this thread is marked as solved but here's another suggestion that you could try.

Bitspring (Beta) allows you to upload and share large files. Just upload them via your browser and choose how you'd like to share them.

Example - share via email message - there are other options:

I'm sharing the file 13-12_win7_win8_64_dd_ccc_whql-[Guru3D.com].exe (204 MB) with you. Click this link to access it:

hxxps://bitspring.co/space/******

Shared using Bitspring


Home Page: https://bitspring.co/

 

[badcrc]

You could zip the file and put a password on the .ZIP.

Upload to a torrent website and send the link to your family.

Torrents are perfectly legal when used the right way.

That's not how torrents work. The file stays on your computer, which would have to stay on until the file(s) had transferred. PirateBay etc do not store the stolen movies on their server - it's called peer2peer for a reason.

The OP could make a multipart rar, say 500MB each, and upload them to a cloud service. This would only be practical if the OP has a fast upload speed eg my upload is about 18Mbit, which is about 8 GB/hr. If the OP has adsl-type speed, it would take too long, with more chance of a dropped connection during transfers.

Another solution is to upload to an HD video hosting site such as Vimeo and set them to private (not YouTube - they ruin your content)

 

[Arcadian]

This is getting very interesting indeed thanks !

I'd also completely forgotten about putting them onto say YouTube or similar which obviously must be the quickest way of all.

Thanks for the useful tip too about YouTube ruining the content, also I've used Vimeo on occasion in the past for friends abroad who wanted to watch an old Forties' film I'd recorded. I remember the private option on Vimeo so is it also possible for them to download and save mine, then upload theirs for me to do the same all on a permanent basis ? Because if so, and as everyone's always nattering away on Skype almost hourly (!), it would be a real treat to see and hear all our reactions simultaneously !

Thanks again for all the really great help and advice !

 

[Alejandro85]

This thread immediately remembered me the following xkcd comic

You could zip the file and put a password on the .ZIP.

Upload to a torrent website and send the link to your family.

Torrents are perfectly legal when used the right way.

Torrents are always legal (it's just a protocol). What you put inside them may be not, of course.
What site does allows such thing? I don't know any site that allows uploading of personal torrents, but some might be useful. Zipping will be of no use with videos (they're already aggressively compressed). Only the torrent would be uploaded, as badcrc correctly points, your computer will then upload the data itself when the other party connects.

But anyway, the real problem is that the upstream bandwidth is probably too little for the 20GB the OP says, unless he has a really good connection. Real life mail seems a good option here.

 

[badcrc]

@ Arcadian

re: YouTube vs Vimeo - I make animation video's using Cinema 4D, so maybe a comparison to home movies is not totally correct, however, when I have uploaded 1080p content to YouTube my stuff looks pretty dire due to to YT's compression. It's understandable that they lower the bitrate - their bandwidth bills must be astronomical. I recently took a £200/year Vimeo Pro deal and my movies on Vimeo look almost as good as the originals on my HDD. Sure they process the vids, but they recommend you upload at a higher bitrate than the streaming figure, to get the best results eg I upload @ 30Mbit, and the streams end up at about 5Mbit. YMMV re home movies.

Although YouTube might be good enough for your purposes (do a test), AFAIK YT have a 10 min limit (in comparison, one of my Vimeo vids is 1 hour - not poss on YT), but hey - it's free. The free Vimeo is a bit limited - 500MB/week, Plus is 5GB/week and Pro is 20GB/week. I think the prices on their site are before tax.

My stuff is mainly of interest to other animators eg tutorials, but you're welcome to have a peek
https://vimeo.com/user32158598

Whether you opt for video hosting or OneDrive/Dropbox etc, you've still got to upload 20GB+.

 

[Arcadian]

Thanks for all this, very useful and helpful indeed though a little over my head at the moment....

I think I'll go with YouTube keeping it to just over 20GB each time then there's no weekly or monthly time limits as it's usually just after international holiday breaks. Do you know about the uploading times with YT ? Will it firstly take just as long ? And secondly wouldn't 20GB + need more than 10 minutes to play or is it all split up to suit first ?

 

[Alejandro85]

Do you know about the uploading times with YT ? Will it firstly take just as long ? And secondly wouldn't 20GB + need more than 10 minutes to play or is it all split up to suit first ?

Uploading time doesn't depends on what service you use, it's all about your connection speed. 20GB will take hours to send (no matter where) in the best case. Youtube/DropBox/Torrent/FTP/Whatever won't make upload faster as it depends only on your computer and connection, but different services may improve download speeds afterwards.

Don't worry too much about where to upload, as long as it meets your requirements for privacy and quality.

 

[Slartybart]

Movie Maker (free) in Vista was fairly good, I'm not as pleased with the Windows Essentials version though.

Try loading the source AVI into movie maker and saving the movie (not the project). I think it offers size/quality (small/eMail, medium/web, and large/dvd) options.

I've alos used Cyperpower ($$)- they offer a trial that you could play with.

Saving your movie does take some time, but it's not unbearable if you sacrifice quality for size.

 

[Arcadian]

Twists and turns ! I'm beginning to get the whole picture now thanks everyone.

Thinking back I'm beginning to think the simplest and cheapest way all round would be to send the memory card through the post to Australia....?

 

[badcrc]

re: YouTube 10 mins - a quick Google tells me that default max is 15 mins, but you can 'verify' your account (needs a mobile phone) to have the limit removed, although if you've had copyright notices in the past, this may count against you. In fact, editing your footage into a set of 10-15 min clips might be the best way to organize things.

 

[Arcadian]

Thanks....

Looking at it all from another tangent are there any better and quicker alternatives than .avi given all these difficulties, as I'm thinking it might be easier in the long run to buy another camera and avoid using .avi altogether ?

 

[HarriePateman]

This thread immediately remembered me the following xkcd comic

You could zip the file and put a password on the .ZIP.

Upload to a torrent website and send the link to your family.

Torrents are perfectly legal when used the right way.

Torrents are always legal (it's just a protocol). What you put inside them may be not, of course.
What site does allows such thing? I don't know any site that allows uploading of personal torrents, but some might be useful. Zipping will be of no use with videos (they're already aggressively compressed). Only the torrent would be uploaded, as badcrc correctly points, your computer will then upload the data itself when the other party connects.

But anyway, the real problem is that the upstream bandwidth is probably too little for the 20GB the OP says, unless he has a really good connection. Real life mail seems a good option here.

Read again.

 

[badcrc]

Thanks....

Looking at it all from another tangent are there any better and quicker alternatives than .avi given all these difficulties, as I'm thinking it might be easier in the long run to buy another camera and avoid using .avi altogether ?

Actually, I did wonder if your movie clips were a bit large due to avi (hence the 20GB). You could prob lower the file sizes by converting to mp4 at a lower bitrate (and poss smaller framesize) using Handbrake eg 1 hour at 1.5Mbit is about 700MB and still OK quality. You can set several clips to convert and leave it running overnight. If you reduced the 20GB somewhat, you could send the clips using, say, Dropbox. Dropbox is quite easy to use, and once the clips are uploaded you just email the link and the recipient downloads them. IIRC, if you use mp4, the clips can also be played straight from Dropbox. You get 2GB free with Dropbox, so you could send the clips 2GB at a time. You might also want to look at the free editor AviDemux - if you cut your mp4 clips on an I frame, there's no recoding.

https://handbrake.fr/
avidemux | SourceForge.net
https://www.dropbox.com/

 

[Arcadian]

Thanks for all the time you're giving !

I did try Dropbox and Amazon but still the same old 10/11 hours involved, also mp4 ditto using Handbrake. I thought about Skysoft video editor but it was almost impossible to choose anything to remove as most of the family had taken turns at videoing themselves so I'd be thrown out the house if I dared suggest it ! You know what 10 to 17 year olds are like plus I haven't seen the cat for ages.

So after a big and very noisy conflab half an hour ago everyone's for posting the memory card making a spare copy just in case. So many thanks again to everyone for all the suggestions and their time.

____________

To avoid this problem again are there video cameras that don't use .avi but can do the same thing in a fraction of the time...?