Ok so here's the thing. I have eyeTV on my computer and it is absolutely great. I have downloaded so many movies off my cable that my 500 gig hard drive is almost full. Now I am in the navy and will more than likely get sent out to a ship soon. That being said, I am limited on space of what I can and cannot bring. I would definitely like to bring with me as many movies/recording with me. What would be my options in terms of storage? Appreciate any help.
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Hard drive full of DVDs
- Thread starter Mattbull
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A bigger HDD I suppose. They go up to 2TB now.
Have a look here to get yourself acquainted with some models of external HDDs.
http://guides.macrumors.com/External_Hard_Drives
Have a look here to get yourself acquainted with some models of external HDDs.
http://guides.macrumors.com/External_Hard_Drives
What Mac do you have? You can use something like a WD Passport drive that comes in 500GB sizes and can plug into the USB.
I have a macbook pro. I also have a 2tb external hard drive that I just bought. Thing is, i don't really have that many movies on my hard drive. Is there a way I can compress movie files (so I can have more on my computer) and still be able to watch them? And what would store them on if space was an issue ( i am thinking possibly storing them on my external HD or dvdr)?
You could use something like Roxio Popcorn if you wanted to shrink them down and keep them in video_ts format. If you want something in mpeg format, you could convert them down with Handbrake, then just use quicktime to play them.
As mentioned use Handbrake or some other video conversion and compression tool. How small the files will become just depends on how picky you are about the visual quality of the videos. The biggest downside is that it will take you hours if not a few days to compress everything depending on how fast your computer is and how many videos you have.
I agree with what everyone else has said about Handbrake or Roxio.
It depends on a couple of variables.
1. What format did you record them in originally (MPEG, m4v, TS, etc.)?
2. What kind of quality are you able to live with for playback?
3. Are you limited on what you can bring and if yes, are you bringing your external HDD?
----
If you are bringing your external HDD, then store them all there and you're able to play them directly from the external HDD.
If you're not bringing the HDD, but you still want to back the files up, then copy them all over the external HDD. Then compress them one at a time via one of the aforementioned programs, with the destination folder being your "Movies" folder on your Mac HDD.
You can also compress them AND convert them to .m4v then store them in your iTunes library, if you wanted to transfer them to an iPod Touch, for more portability.
FYI - before you leave to serve our country, please do a backup of your system to the external HDD, with either TimeMachine or CarbonCopyCloner, or an online backup to something like Carbonite.com. That way, if you have any issue with the laptop not operating correctly, you can rest assured you have a backup!
It depends on a couple of variables.
1. What format did you record them in originally (MPEG, m4v, TS, etc.)?
2. What kind of quality are you able to live with for playback?
3. Are you limited on what you can bring and if yes, are you bringing your external HDD?
----
If you are bringing your external HDD, then store them all there and you're able to play them directly from the external HDD.
If you're not bringing the HDD, but you still want to back the files up, then copy them all over the external HDD. Then compress them one at a time via one of the aforementioned programs, with the destination folder being your "Movies" folder on your Mac HDD.
You can also compress them AND convert them to .m4v then store them in your iTunes library, if you wanted to transfer them to an iPod Touch, for more portability.
FYI - before you leave to serve our country, please do a backup of your system to the external HDD, with either TimeMachine or CarbonCopyCloner, or an online backup to something like Carbonite.com. That way, if you have any issue with the laptop not operating correctly, you can rest assured you have a backup!