How do I compress MOD files to burn on a CD?

Hi there, I’m very new to this stuff!! So would love some help.

I’m trying to back up my video files onto CD’s. The only way I can think of is to burn them onto CD’s as data, but I have 6 months worth of videos and I can only fit half a day on each CD in some cases, so this is very time consuming and takes heaps of CD’s. Is there a more simple way??? Maybe using a program to compress them or something?

Also, I’m downloading them to PC from our JVC everio. There are MOV.MOI files and MOV.MOD files, I have been keeping them together, but do I need to keep both on the CD? And what about the PRG.PGI files? Because the CD’s don’t have much space, I have to split a days/weeks videos and the PRG.PGI file is on one CD and not on the other, does this matter??
Thanks!

I renamed your topic because the title was misleading.
The JVC Everio produces movies with filenames in the pattern MOV#####.MOD, which are MPEG-2 files. MOV in this case is the prefix. When we say “MOV files” on the forum we usually mean files with extension .MOV (QuickTime files), which are totally different.

To address your question, perhaps you may want to upgrade to a DVD writer, instead of CD writer. DVD-R and DVD R hold around 4.3GB of data, which is about 7 times more than a CD-R (700MB).
Despite this you may still have quite a bit of burning to do. If you really keep HUGE amounts of data, another option may simply be to buy a large hard disk. They’re fairly cheap these days. You can get a 500GB drive for less than $150. If you need to lug the data around, you may want to consider an external drive. The only downside of hard disk as opposed to optical media is they’re much more sensitive to shocks (a big bump and you could lose everything) and to static electricity (and magnetic fields in general). Otherwise they’re much faster to access (very fast seek and read times, no swapping in and out of media), and they can store a lot more.
I was looking at the JVC website for the Everio, and one of the features mentioned is “Direct DVD Button/Direct Backup Button”. If you can get your hands on a DVD burner, you could look up the documentation for the Everio and see how that works out.

Finally if you really want to stick to CD-R’s, and you’re desperate to compress, there are several options.

You can cut the movie in 700MB segments. The Everio may come with software bundled that may be able to do this. If not, you can use TMPGEnc from here (the download to the free version is at the top of the page, after you select your language). The way to do it is go to file, MPEG Tools. Go to the merge and cut tab. For type pick MPEG-2 Program. Click add to add your file, select the file and click edit, set a start point, and set an endpoint. Click browse and type the name of your output file. Then click run. You may need to do trial and error to get a duration that will yield under 700MB.
As you may know, MPEG-2 is the same format as what you have on commercial DVD’s. It yields pristine quality, but it’s been superseded by more modern codecs that offer better compression. MPEG-4 is a newer generation of such codecs. Two of the most popular implementations of MPEG-4 are DivX and Xvid (that’s what you usually find on file sharing programs). They’re usually implemented in the AVI container (AVI files). In theory MPEG-4 could compress the contents of an MPEG-2 movie on 4.3 GB DVD to fit on a 700MB CD-R. In practice, people tend to sacrifice some quality and resolution to achieve that level of compression. In some cases, they will span the movie over two CD-R’s to improve quality.
So how do you do it? First, get VirtualDub-MPEG-2 here. Open your MOD file with it. Click Video, compression, and pick your favorite codec. Click configure to adjust the settings (more on this later). Click Audio, full processing mode. Then click audio, and pick some compression scheme (usually MPEG-1 layer 3 (aka MP3) will do). Then click file, save as AVI. If you’re doing this to a lot of files, click on the box “Don’t run this job now; Add it to job control so I can run it in batch mode”. Once you have all your files ready, go to file, job control, and click start.
Now about compression settings: there’s a lot of them, but for the Xvid and DivX you can look up these guides here.
Now there’s an option for those who don’t want to deal with the mumbo-jumbo of these guides (they’re really easy, actually, but people are just lazy). It’s in the form of the DivX Converter (it’s bundled with DivX codec on divx.com). It doesn’t ask you any questions. It just asks for an input file, and it spits out the .divx file out. If you’re in a huge hurry and have a lot of files to process, that’s another way to go. The downside is naturally the lack of control you have over encoding parameters, like quality and size.

Hunnibee2 wrote: There are MOV.MOI files and MOV.MOD files, I have been keeping them together, but do I need to keep both on the CD? And what about the PRG.PGI files?

I’m not 100% positive on this, but I believe .MOI may be what .THM files are to .AVI files, namely thumbnails with metadata about the movie. The camcorder may need them to keep track of the files or play them back, but once they’re on your hard disk, unless the program that comes bundled with your camcorder requires them, I don’t think they’re essential for playback of the .MOD files. It’s a good idea to keep them just in case though (especially if they’re small, which I believe they should be).

I don’t know what PRG.PGI files are.

I know this was a really brief sketch of your possible options, but feel free to get back if you need more detailed assistance in a specific area.

Thanks heaps for your reply anonymous! Very helpful and that gives me a few options. I will check out the Everio book and see if I can find the part about the back-up button.

I’m pretty sure I can burn DVDs on my PC, but when I try to burn the data files onto a DVD it comes up with an error in the burning program, so I assumed I needed to actually 'produce' the video first in the JVC program (which is also time consuming), and then burn this onto a DVD as an actual movie, rather than just the data files?? But if this is the case it still might be easier in long run.

I’ll check out your compressing info and see how that will work too.

Thanks for your help.

I’m sorry I may have made a mistake in my post earlier. I thought the Everio was a single model, it’s actually a family of models. I was looking at this page for the GZ-MG130 and the pdf documents there. Turns out I should have looked here instead... So the backup to DVD button may or may not be available on your specific model.

Now about your DVD burning troubles. Yes, you can burn data DVD’s just as you can burn data CD’s. What program do you use to burn data DVD’s? What is the exact error message? And what formats does your DVD burner support (DVD+R DVD-R DVD+RW DVD-RW DVD-RAM etc...)?
If you’re not sure, use the Nero Info Tool from here. http://www.nero.com/enu/support-nero8-tools-utilities.html
Just check what it says about supported media. And just in case, also check for ASPI drivers. One person in thread 4500 mentioned that it can be a hindrance if missing.
“Producing” a DVD is slightly different from data DVD’s in that you have to use a DVD authoring program. It creates chapters and organizes files similarly to commercial DVD’s. (When you look at those in Windows Explorer you can see the .VOB .IFO and .BUP files, and a very specific directory hierarchy). From the way you stated things, I had the impression you were merely interested in backing up/archiving though, not in authoring.

Hi again, thank you for the extra info. I haven’t had a chance to try and compress the files as you described. I’ll try to get my head around that tonight, but I did try and burn the files to a DVD. I am using the Roxio Creator LE Dell edition program (which came with the PC), I selected 'create a data disc of files on cd/dvd media', added my files (which are in folders auto named PRG002 etc containing files ie MOV0CD.MOD & MOV0CD.MOI ...etc).
It attempts to burn ie 3.7GB and then has an error message 'There was a problem writing to the disc' the simple explaination is “Recording error - often because of dirt fingerprints scratches.." so it says to clean the disc, the Advanced explanation says the following that I cut and pasted -(I don’t know if it means anything to you, but you never know, so here it is!!)

Sense: 03 ASC: 80 ASCQ: 04 (Command 2A)
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
Px.dll: 2.2.54.500
pxdrv.dll: 1.1.68.0
PxMas.dll: 2.2.54.500
PxSFS.DLL: 2.2.54.500
PxWave.dll: 2.2.54.500
pxwma.dll: 1.0.0.3

Anyway, obviously I checked the discs, and they are new TDK DVD-R and tried again... and 4 ruined dvd discs later it still says the same error message!!

It will successfully burn onto CD’s though, hence the start of this thread, I just thought you couldn’t put data onto DVD’s. And yes I’m really only interested in backing up, because if I go to the trouble of producing the files in 'Power Producer 2 Gold' (which came with the camera) I can burn them onto DVD’s as movies.

So I’m not sure if its the burning program or the driver (me), but I have successfully burned music and other Data on CD’s, and I have burned basic 'produced' movies in the past. So hopefully I’m not missing something stupid!!!

Just another thought... maybe I’m making it hard for myself and I should just learn how to use the producing program better and do it that way anyway???

Really I just want a quick way to back-up the files in case the PC crashes, then I’ll have the option of 'producing' certain things as movies in the future if I want, and I can do that when I get around to it.

I’m appreciating your help.

Oh, and the camera is a JVC GZ-MG20AH. And the book has a step for back-up, but it was just the basic method for copying files to your PC and how to put them back to the camera.

http://www.nero.com/enu/support-nero8-tools-utilities.html
Get the nero info tool, unzip it, insert a blank disc, and run it. I just want to know what it says for supported media for writing.

I tried a google search for the type of error you mentioned
here are some of the results

It’s really hard to guess what it is, but it’s most likely a media error or a drive error. You should be able to burn data dvd’s.
Things to try:
1. Download any online updates to your DVD burning software if they’re available.
2. Try different media. Oddly, different brands of media sometimes work better. If you have a multi drive, maybe try +R media.
3. Get a DVD lens cleaning kit
4. Get a firmware update for your drive. Don’t try this unless you really know what you’re doing.