How come a-m-v.org doesn't use .ZIP format?

Dann3 · Post by **Dann3** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 6:33 pm

If you encoded every single video here that would reduce the space tremendously and also save bandwidth. I mean, i had a 140 mb video and i zipped it to 53 megs. Seeing as how windows XP comes equipped with a zip program and WinZip is free (www.winzip.com) Is there a reason why they want the raw file?

Toxic Shade · Post by **Toxic Shade** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 6:36 pm

Anyone who uses .zip is crucified.

Kalium · Post by **Kalium** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 6:37 pm

A lot of the files here are very well compressed. Zipping them has little effect. Another part of it, I suspect, is that a .zip can contain anything, with no way to easily verify if it's actually a video file.

Lyrs · Post by **Lyrs** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 6:45 pm

THere are means of detecting what is inside a zip file. Most, at least most AV programs that i know off, can detect and scan the files packaged inside a zip file to figure out the contents inside. This is of course unless someone encrypts the zip file with something non-standard.

However, the site doesn't need to zip files yet. I remember Phade saying that there's still plenty of space left on the storage.

godix · Post by **godix** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 7:45 pm

Videos are already compressed before being uploaded. If zipping up your video saves significant amounts of space that's a sure sign that you did a poor job when you compressed the video and need to go redo it. I suggest, as always, to Read <a href=http://www.a-m-v.org/guides/avtech31/>ErMaC & AbsoluteDestiny's Friendly AMV Guides</a>. The entire idea behind lossy codecs like Xvid, Mpeg, etc is that they produce smaller files than lossless codecs like zip and if they don't then you're doing something wrong.

Org Profile · Post by **Phade** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 8:27 pm

Hey Dann3,

What the others have said is correct. If you've encoded your video nicely, zip will have very little effect on the final file size. Some codecs are built that way so that the computer processor has to do less work to display the video at the expense of larger file size. Try zipping some of the better videos here on the site. The zipped file should be very close in size to the original.

After a year of using the local storage Golden Donut server, the capacity is only 46% full. This means that we have another whole year until we've filled it up. By then, we should have enough saved up to triple capacity at less cost than the original storage machine.

I hope this helps.

Phade.

Katsumi_AMVs · Post by **Katsumi_AMVs** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 8:43 pm

Phade wrote: By then, we should have enough saved up to triple capacity at less cost than the original storage machine.

I hope this helps.

Phade.

OH YEAH

This helps ^^

<3

Declan_Vee · Post by **Declan_Vee** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 10:54 pm

Also if there is an error in the download (it can happen, even from the donut) the zipped file is totally unusable. I've also noticed the same thing to happen with DivX5 (unwatchable). With other files you may only notice a slight blip, so it's not so much of a problem.

Bakadeshi [AuN Studios] · Post by **Bakadeshi [AuN Studios]** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 11:04 pm

Declan_Vee wrote:Also if there is an error in the download (it can happen, even from the donut) the zipped file is totally unusable. I've also noticed the same thing to happen with DivX5 (unwatchable).

All of the mpeg4 variant codecs (In fact I think any .AVI file period) will exhibit this problem. Only the mpegs will still play if incomplete. THis is because the Index for the file (If my understanding is correct) is put at the end of the file, a limitation with the AVI format. Some thirdparty programs (like Divfix) can rebuild this index for you though so you can still watch the incomplete file.

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Sat Apr 24, 2004 11:32 pm

Bakadeshi [AuN Studios] wrote:
Declan_Vee wrote:Also if there is an error in the download (it can happen, even from the donut) the zipped file is totally unusable. I've also noticed the same thing to happen with DivX5 (unwatchable).
All of the mpeg4 variant codecs (In fact I think any .AVI file period) will exhibit this problem. Only the mpegs will still play if incomplete. THis is because the Index for the file (If my understanding is correct) is put at the end of the file, a limitation with the AVI format. Some thirdparty programs (like Divfix) can rebuild this index for you though so you can still watch the incomplete file.

Just to clarify:

This is a container issue, not a codec issue.

AVIs have this problem, but even then, they're still playable if you have a player that is smart enough to know how to reconstruct the index block. It has nothing to with what standard you encode your video stream to.