Linux file compressing

[Jeremyy44]

Hi I was wondering about file compressing programs.

I am trying to backup my plex data so my movies and series and by compressing them to make them smaller.

Everytime I tried the file was too big I have ~2.1tb and it always ends up over 1tb so I was wondering what program could compresse it even more?

I tried 7zip and tar for now

[AbydosOne]

10 minutes ago, Jeremyy44 said:

Hi I was wondering about file compressing programs.

I am trying to backup my plex data so my movies and series and by compressing them to make them smaller.

Everytime I tried the file was too big I have ~2.1tb and it always ends up over 1tb so I was wondering what program could compresse it even more?

I tried 7zip and tar for now

Almost all video files are already extremely well compressed. You can only compress so much (losslessly).

[Helpful Tech Witch]

you compressed to like a 50% ratio (it think thats how it works)(bassically to half of the origonal size). Thats pretty damn good. I wouldn't risk it, compresing too much can lead to data coruption in the decompress. (at least ime)

[WereCatf]

1 hour ago, Jeremyy44 said:

I am trying to backup my plex data so my movies and series and by compressing them to make them smaller.

Everytime I tried the file was too big I have ~2.1tb and it always ends up over 1tb so I was wondering what program could compresse it even more?

Videos are already compressed. What you're trying to do is impossible, unless you're willing to reduce the videos' quality.

1 hour ago, HelpfulTechWizard said:

I wouldn't risk it, compresing too much can lead to data coruption in the decompress.

That's not how it works.

[Jeremyy44]

2 hours ago, AbydosOne said:

Almost all video files are already extremely well compressed. You can only compress so much (losslessly).

Oh alright thank you then would there be another option aside from just copy pasting? Cause im not tryna buy another 4tb hdd

[Jeremyy44]

1 hour ago, WereCatf said:

Videos are already compressed. What you're trying to do is impossible, unless you're willing to reduce the videos' quality.

That's not how it 

Thank you then any idea for another backup option? Im not tryna buy another 4tb hh and just copy paste

[WereCatf]

5 hours ago, Jeremyy44 said:

Thank you then any idea for another backup option?

There is no magic way of making videos smaller without reducing their quality. I mean, if there was, don't you think everyone would already be using that?

 

No, if you want to back up your videos, you'll need to either get more storage or rent it.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

11 hours ago, WereCatf said:

That's not how it works.

Ive had over compression lead to corrupted files hence me saying ime. 

[Jeremyy44]

9 hours ago, WereCatf said:

There is no magic way of making videos smaller without reducing their quality. I mean, if there was, don't you think everyone would already be using that?

 

No, if you want to back up your videos, you'll need to either get more storage or rent it.

Alright makes sense well then thank you for your time

[D_Lan]

Since I haven't seen it mentioned yet, HandBrake is a video transcoder and has a GUI and CLI on Windows and Linux. I've been compressing AVI files and switching them over to MP4 using H.264 with minimal quality loss with it. I've seen roughly 50% compression this way, but the videos weren't exactly high quality to begin with. FFmpeg also works but it's way more complex to use.

 

Command line interface looks something like this:

HandBrakeCLI -i input.avi -o output.mp4 -f mp4 --encoder x264 --quality 23.0

 

There's way better instructions on it from a google search. I'd recommend grabbing the GUI version from a package manager and playing around with the settings.