I have a set of files that I want to backup to DVD (4590MiB to be exact). Unfortunately, my DVD+Rs only have 4483MiB capacities, so I have a smidge over 100MiB extra that won't quite fit on the disc. Of course, I'd perfer not to use two discs for just a small amount of space, so I was wondering if there's any way I could get just a little more milage out of my DVDs. I tried overburning, but it was unsuccessful. I know CDs can be burned with different settings to gain an extra 50-100 MiBs (if you're willing to give up error correction and possibly detection) and I was just curious to know if anything similar could be done with DVDs, as a few read errors wouldn't cause any big problems for my content. Any ideas to get another 100MiBs out of my discs would be helpful though. Thanks in advance!
ZIP wasn't effective enough to get the size below the DVD's capacity (the files are MP3s so compression isn't too helpful since they're already compressed). I compressed them using the maximum setting on 7-ZIP and it might just barely fit, but extracting individual files takes a really long time with how much compression was used, so if there is a free compression algorithm that can get similar compression results to 7-ZIP without long decompression times that would work. If there isn't I could use 7-ZIP as a last resort, but I was hoping file access would be a little less sluggish (it takes about 15-20 minutes on a 1.6GHz P4 to extract a single file).
there used to be some s/w called uharc - it was used by ripping teams to compress multimedia, may be worth a try. also winace is worth a try, from tests a while ago it achieved better results than winzip and winrar etc and is shareware. either way a 4.7 gig archive is gonna take AGES to uncompress anyway. i would just use 2 disks tho as im lazy!
Just made another coaster. The 7-ZIP file was about 9MiBs too big and these DVDs clearly don't have any spare space for overburning. Any other free alternatives to squeeze just a teeny-tiny bit more onto my discs?
If you're making coasters, you just used that extra disc you didn't want to waste. Anyway, instead of zipping, can't you use a different file format like wma which supposedly gives you the same quality at 60% of the size? Don't zip it. It's not worth it, especially if you want to play files directly off the DVD. You should just leave the 100MB or so off the DVD and save it for another as I'm sure you'll have more later. And use rewritables for mp3s. The reason I say that is I'm constantly updating my mp3 collection and hate having one band on multiple DVDs as soon as I add a live set or B-side.
It's kind of important that the files remain unchanged and in their original state, so transcoding to a more efficient format unfortunately isn't an option. Using maximum compression on a solid RAR archive resulted in a file 1/8 of a megabyte too big and overburning failed even with that small amount of extra space. As far as reducing the amount of data that needs to be put on the DVD, I don't think that can be reduced much more. Are there any burning options that could allow me to get one more megabyte of space? (Sorry I'm being such an insistant noobie, I know it's none of you guys' fault. )
as i said, get winace and give it a go on max comp. it compresses slightly better than rar and much better than zip... if you select the multimedia option you may squeeze more out...
Tried it - no luck, still about 5MiB too big. There are basically three ordered volumes of MP3s that I wanted to burn, and there are more to come, but I guess I will just burn the ones that will fit and then hang on to the few others until there are enough for a second disc. Thanks anyway.
You said it was 5Mb too big and you are using +Rs at 4483Mb, I've always found -Rs hold 4489Mb, then would't it fit
It is, for DVD+Rs anyway. I heard the dual-layer discs were still a little spendy though, so I'll have to do some price checking.
Down to £3 inc shipping etc here in the UK, but yes STILL a little dear. http://www.blankdiscshop.co.uk/acatalog/dbllayer.html
