Compress 75gb .mov files.

[qzxyu]

How do I get my huggge 75gb+ .mov files smaller? Much smaller. Ive been copying my HS and College football VHS to my computer and the files they are creating are way too big to burn to a DVD. I have a new 2.7 iMac.

Cheers

 

[simsaladimbamba]

HandBrake.
The application you use to capture those VHS cassettes obviously uses the Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) to encode the video, which results in big files, that are editable.
HandBrake will let you make smaller files that can be at least burnt to DVD for storage, but if you want to create video DVDs, look at iDVD, but know, that 4.7GB DVD media can only store 90 minutes of fairly good visual quality video.

 

[qzxyu]

Thanks again. I can compress them in iMovie as well as handbrake? Sorry Im a total newb.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Thanks again. I can compress them in iMovie as well as handbrake? Sorry Im a total newb.

Yes, iMovie should offer you some options under the SHARE menu bar item. Maybe have a look at some of the iMovie tutorials widely available about exporting from iMovie to whatever format you want.

 

[nateo200]

Compress FIRST. Usually I would say take the raw footage and combine it but 75GB's of .Mov in iMovie with anything less than a 12 core Mac pro with 64gigs of ram is surely going to quite literally violate your computer 6x over tell it freezes. I seriously hope you have 16gigs of ram on that iMac or its going to be no fun exporting let alone editing that!

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Compress FIRST. Usually I would say take the raw footage and combine it but 75GB's of .Mov in iMovie with anything less than a 12 core Mac pro with 64gigs of ram is surely going to quite literally violate your computer 6x over tell it freezes. I seriously hope you have 16gigs of ram on that iMac or its going to be no fun exporting let alone editing that!

What?
I don't use iMovie, but I have edited 75GB of SD video in FCP and Avid Media Composer on my iBook without hiccups, except when I wanted to apply effects or such things.
Last year I edited 250GB of SD video on my 2009 MBP.

At work we have a quad-core 2008 Mac Pro with 4GB RAM handling four TB of SD and HD video without hiccups. The years before that, we used a quad-core 2006 Mac Pro with 4GB RAM to handle 10 TB of data per project.

How do you come to such a ridiculous conclusion?

PS: Compressed footage is harder on the CPU during the editing process, thus MacBooks (for example) are not so good at handling MPEG-4 footage from an AVCHD camera. Thus iMovie normally transcodes the video during import to a .mov file using Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) as a proper editing codec, which is less taxing.

The 75GB of .mov files are most likely using AIC as codec, or maybe just the DV codec, as VHS material is lower than SD quality (320 x 240 to be exact, SD is at least 720 x 576 in PAL). 12GB of DV (or AIC) encoded can store one hour of video, thus 75GB are good six hours of video.
75GB of highly compressed video would be 75 hours of video, or even more.

 

[cgbier]

If you simply want to burn your stuff to DVD, use iDVD. The app will compress it to the right size (if it is not more than two hours of program).

 

[nateo200]

What?
I don't use iMovie, but I have edited 75GB of SD video in FCP and Avid Media Composer on my iBook without hiccups, except when I wanted to apply effects or such things.
Last year I edited 250GB of SD video on my 2009 MBP.

At work we have a quad-core 2008 Mac Pro with 4GB RAM handling four TB of SD and HD video without hiccups. The years before that, we used a quad-core 2006 Mac Pro with 4GB RAM to handle 10 TB of data per project.

How do you come to such a ridiculous conclusion?

PS: Compressed footage is harder on the CPU during the editing process, thus MacBooks (for example) are not so good at handling MPEG-4 footage from an AVCHD camera. Thus iMovie normally transcodes the video during import to a .mov file using Apple Intermediate Codec (AIC) as a proper editing codec, which is less taxing.

The 75GB of .mov files are most likely using AIC as codec, or maybe just the DV codec, as VHS material is lower than SD quality (320 x 240 to be exact, SD is at least 720 x 576 in PAL). 12GB of DV (or AIC) encoded can store one hour of video, thus 75GB are good six hours of video.
75GB of highly compressed video would be 75 hours of video, or even more.

Whoops I was thinking of working with all H.264 nvm sorry! Still it depends on what the .Mov container file actually is...if its not H.264 then fine.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Whoops I was thinking of working with all H.264 nvm sorry! Still it depends on what the .Mov container file actually is...if its not H.264 then fine.

Should've thought of that you thought like that, would've toned my reply down a bit, but just a tiny bit, though I like bytes more, but they are less anyways.

I seriously hope the OP doesn't have 75GB of H.264 encoded VHS video on his or her Mac, as that would seriously suck.

 

[nateo200]

Should've thought of that you thought like that, would've toned my reply down a bit, but just a tiny bit, though I like bytes more, but they are less anyways.

I seriously hope the OP doesn't have 75GB of H.264 encoded VHS video on his or her Mac, as that would seriously suck.

Yeah...I'm starting to hate H.264 codec with a passion...really love it despite its down sides for final delivery (Vimeo, YouTube, BluRay, storage, etc.) but working with importing DSLR video to FCP X with that stuff in 1080p is such a pain in the ass! I swear it transcodes at retard pace too! Wasn't there supposed to be native support for H.264 in FCP X? There are wayyyy to many DSLR video pro's out their for Apple to not even consider that..