Archive Files - Computer Question

[js 0]

I've purchased a Family-Tree program and wanna save both Audio and Video files in it.

 

What are the most acceptable FORMATS (e.g. WAV, MP3, MPEG, etc) for storing these types of files so they're accessible into the future.

 

That is - which file formats are considered main-stream/standard/generic?

 

Thanks in advance for assistance.

[misorano 1]

Are you looking at storing files you've downloaded off the internet?

[tsondaboy 0]

It depends were you get the files from.

If you download them from the internet, then they should be already be in a compressed format like mp3, so you just store them as they are.

If you are ripping CDs- DVDs then it is a matter of how big disc space you have and what kind of sound/video quality you are interested in.

For example if you have huge disk you can keep everything in wave format and don’t loose in sound quality. If you want to save some disc space then better convert them into mp3s. Any compression over 128 kbps will give you reasonable sound quality. For comparison a track stored in WAVE format takes about 70-90 Mb space wile in mp3 format would take 3-10 Mb (depending on the compression rate).

[js 0]

Didn't consider downloading stuff off The Net, generally will not.

 

Will predominantly be loading sound and video files off 'devices' - camera's, camcords, digital audio, etc.

 

Storage isn't a prob - External HDD's.

 

The issue is, which FILE FORMATS are considered STANDARD in the industry. E.g. like GIF and JPG are in image files.

[tsondaboy 0]

And again STANDARD depends on the compression.

i.e.

STANDARD for uncompressed sound files is WAVE format, wile STANDARD for compressed files is mp3.

STANDARD for uncompressed video files is MPEG format wile STANDARD for compressed would be DivX.

Also don’t forget that GIF, BMP is a STANDARD format for internet compressed files, wile an uncompressed STANDARD would be for example photoshop PSD format.

An image saved as a PSD would take several Mb of space wile as GIF several Kb.

Also a video camera or digital camera has several options for the compression or the resolution of the picks-videos you take.

 

For example you can take 10 picks uncompressed (camera saves them usually as TIF files) or you can select a compression ratio and take 60, 100, 300 picks (usually saved as GIF or JPG by your camera).

 

If you are not planning to use them professionally, then make you life easier and save your files in a compressed format. I guess you are mostly restricted by the compressed uncompressed formats that your video camera supports and not from what you can do later by yourself using some program.

[NoFakie 45]

Storage is only going to get cheaper in the future, so there's no need to really super compress everything. You can get dvd writers really cheap these days. Then its 4.7GB for less than 100 yen.

 

Don't forget to back something like this up. It sounds like there's going to be massive personal value to it.