compression for speed?

[tjones9163]

Hello, I use Dropbox to for some files and I keep a couple seasons of my favorite tv shows also. When I transfer a video file from my computer to Dropbox it takes a very long time. Does it make sense to compress the file so I can transfer it faster to Dropbox, then just uncompress it with any other device that I have hooked up to my Dropbox account? Does that make any sense to do? ( I do understand that there are media servers that can do a better job but I guess I'm just trying to understand the most efficient ways to transfer various files over the web or LAN)
Thanks again

 

[Solandri]

Videos, photos (except bitmaps), and music files (except for raw rips) are already compressed. You might manage to shrink them a few percent more with a really good compression program that takes a really long time, but it's generally not worth it. Trying to compress them might even make them bigger. It's text files, documents, and database files which compress the most. And they're usually not very big, so it's only worth doing if you have a lot of them.

If your Internet connection is slow, it may be worth copying the files to a laptop or USB stick, and taking them over to a friend's house with a faster connection and transferring them from there. One of my past employers deliberately rented space in the same building as his data hosting service to insure maximum file transfer speeds. As the saying goes, never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tape backups.

And why are you storing TV shows on Dropbox? Just put them on a local external hard drive or USB stick.

 

[tjones9163]

Videos, photos (except bitmaps), and music files (except for raw rips) are already compressed. You might manage to shrink them a few percent more with a really good compression program that takes a really long time, but it's generally not worth it. Trying to compress them might even make them bigger. It's text files, documents, and database files which compress the most. And they're usually not very big, so it's only worth doing if you have a lot of them.

If your Internet connection is slow, it may be worth copying the files to a laptop or USB stick, and taking them over to a friend's house with a faster connection and transferring them from there. One of my past employers deliberately rented space in the same building as his data hosting service to insure maximum file transfer speeds. As the saying goes, never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tape backups.

And why are you storing TV shows on Dropbox? Just put them on a local external hard drive or USB stick.

I suppose I could, but then i cant access my media from anywhere on the spot without an external drive.. .right??