Episode Storage

[Snapp]

I thought I see them popping up on such sites as ioffer.com etc but there's nothing. Surely there is someone out there putting these episodes on DVD. It's probably the last hope of episodes on DVD in such good quality, as time goes by it's hard to imagine the show ever being rerun again.

[-Andrew-]

When the run first started, I thought about putting them on DVD's as opposed to having digital video files. But really, keeping them as files is just more practical in the long run. Disc Media will inevitably do a 'VHS' before we know it and we'll be stuck with the time consuming task of transferring hundreds of episodes back to how we first obtained them, albeit in a lower quality (assuming you mean as a DVD-video and not data DVD's).

That's why I don't bother with DVD's anyway...

[Pierced Musie]

I also thought about putting them on DVD but then realized it just isn't practical. It takes up a lot of time and then take into account just how many disc would be needed, which would cost quite a bit of money.

I actually bought a DVD player that has a USB on it so I get to watch them that way. Actually there are quite a few cheap DVD/media players out there now that take USB & SD cards, that would play all files (avi, flv, mp4, mkv etc....). It is definitely the cheaper and easier way .

[Snapp]

Where are you both sourcing the episodes?

[home and away 1988-2000]

I've thought about putting them on DVD myself, but I don't see any point as it will take hours and discs can scratch easily so I've just stored them all on my hard drive since the pilot.

[Old H&A Fan]

Remember to avoid loss of quality always, always keep the originals as broadcast in MPEG2 format (.ts, .mpg, etc.)

Conversions to MP4, FLV, AVI, etc. are at least one digital generation (quality loss) down, so NEVER throw away the original MPEG2 transport streams as that is how they are broadcast.

[Ryan]

I've put them onto Discs as a back-up if anythings goes wrong with my computer.

[Dan F]

I should warn people to please not discuss the sourcing of episode downloads and/or copies to trade/buy, as per the warnings at the top of every forum. We regret that we can't let you do so (in other circumstances they would have been available on the forum as they were in the old days), but I'm sure you understand that we don't have much choice in the matter due to the legal threats that took our episode downloads offline in the first place. We can't control what people do via PM though.

Discussing an individual's storage of episodes, which the thread seems to have turned into anyway, is a different matter of course....as such, hopefully Snapp won't mind if I change the topic title accordingly (and move to General) as opposed to having to close the thread, as it's quite an interesting discussion.

I'm in the same boat as Musie, my DVD player has a USB port so any episodes acquired I can just put on the USB stick and watch them on the TV as normal, it really is a godsend!

Any I record myself come straight off my PVR (again, thanks to a USB port) and onto my external hard drive in the original .ts format - takes up more room (around 400-500MB an episode if from 5star) but I just have to keep them as high quality as possible (as Old H&A Fan says) - as I never know when I'll need screencaps for character profiles, credit caps etc. Freeview compression is bad enough sometimes without compressing even further.

Every single episode that I have digitally (around 2500 at the moment, though I still have many from the late 90s and early 00's on VHS and DVD still to convert) are organised into folders on my external hard drive - first by year and then block number (i.e. one folder for every week of the show), into which any other stuff like publicity pictures & synopses are also placed.

Really do need to get a backup of those sorted asap, but not that easy when you've nearly filled up a 1TB hard drive already.... Another 2TB hard drive and blu-ray burner is top of my wishlist...

[Light of the Bay]

Any I record myself come straight off my PVR (again, thanks to a USB port) and onto my external hard drive in the original .ts format - takes up more room (around 400-500MB an episode if from 5star) but I just have to keep them as high quality as possible (as Old H&A Fan says) - as I never know when I'll need screencaps for character profiles, credit caps etc. Freeview compression is bad enough sometimes without compressing even further.

I record episodes to my PVR but I am unsure as to how to get them onto an external hard drive? Would you mind explaining to me as I really have no idea

[Dan F]

It all depends on the model of the PVR as to whether it's possible or not, I purposely bought one which had a USB port (a Humax 9200T which is around 8 years old now) in order to transfer files.