win rar

jmahoney · 4 May 2006 at 10:45

If I use win rar to compress a 20gb file what will the software comprress it too?

Otacon · 4 May 2006 at 10:48

Depends on the file. Plain text? Very small. An mp3 (or other compressed audio/video)? Not muchdifference.

What's the file?

The_KiD · 4 May 2006 at 10:49

Completely depends on the type of file.

Some files compress better than others.

Try it and see.

jmahoney · 4 May 2006 at 10:52

its a file with loads of mp3s thats it

Otacon · 4 May 2006 at 10:56

You won't shrink it by much then. mp3 is already a compressed format.

jmahoney · 4 May 2006 at 10:58

ok thanks is there any other software application I can get to shrink these?
Or some sort of software that wil back them up?

Pyrosoft · 4 May 2006 at 12:37

Pretty much the only way to reduce the size of an mp3 file is to reduce the bitrate.
The lower the bitrate the lower the quality.
This is a one way process though (as far as I know) so if you like the quality as it is right now, then live with it, if you would be happy to reduce the filesize at a loss of quality then that would be do-able.

I've experimented with zipping audio files before and sometimes ended up with files bigger than when I started

[edit]
Backing them up...a small stack of DVD's and Nero?