Storing Your Digital Downloads?

Author	Post
ameelynn1980 Member 629 Posts 9/07	Posted - Jan 14 2011 : 12:19PM Like a lot of porn watchers, I don't bother keeping my subscriptions to Brazzers, NaughtyAmerica, Bangbros, etc... going from month-to-month. About 90-95% of the content just doesn't appeal to me (e.g. same actresses over and over, same body type over and over, etc...), so its not worth paying for every single month. Instead, what I usually do is subscribe to any given site for about a month, every six months, and then download the movies from the back catalog that actually interest me. The problem is that even if you're downloading only 1% of the stuff you like, you can end up with several GB worth of files in no time flat. I've got multiple Terabytes of disk space available, so space is not really an issue. But I've read a number of forum postings/articles which suggest that its really bad for your computer's registry to have too many files (of any size) in any given folder and that its also not good to have more than a few very large (300Mb+) files in any one folder. Not to mention the fact that some aficionados don't necessarily want their porn stashed on their hard drive where it can be easily discovered by family members or significant others (not an issue in my case, but I know its an issue for others). I'm curious to know how others store their downloaded flicks. Do you burn everything you download to DVD? Do you have a specified drive for your porn content? Do you set up different folders (maybe arranged by actress or theme?) to separate that content or do you just lump everything together? Do you store everything on an external drive? Or are you resigned to just not holding on to any of the scenes you come across? MODS: Just as an FYI, and if it is not already abundantly clear, when I refer to "downloaded" materials, I'm talking about content that has been paid for and LEGALLY downloaded from web sites like Brazzers and RealityKings, as allowed for by their terms and conditions. Topic Moved by - heynow on Jan 15 2011 [Link]
pat362 Senior Member 10079 Posts 3/10	Posted - Jan 14 2011 : 8:42PM Your best solution is external hard drives. Most of the new ones are in the Terabyte range so even one should be good for a long time. You can easily download to them. They don't affect the normal running of your computer. You can unplug them from your computer and this way the content is not available to anyone. You can take the drive with you. If something bad should happen to your computer then you will still have your porn collection intact. [Link]
RiveGauche1999 Member 472 Posts 1/05	Posted - Jan 14 2011 : 9:43PM I have tons of it my external drives are nearly full, i try to burn as fast as i can but i like you only do the 1 mth. thing, becuase after you have gotten all you want, there is no need in keeping the membership going, but if i really like the content, i'll re-join to see the updates. I had no idea that having tons of flicks may affect the computer's registry . . . [Link]
zambi Senior Member 1451 Posts 3/10	Posted - Jan 14 2011 : 10:34PM I just finished copying my DVD collection to hard drive a while ago. DVD is NOT the way to go. A 2 TB drive = 2000 GBs right. The average DVD is about 8 GB (older DVD are less). That means you can store about 250 DVDs on a single hard drive with no compression or loss of quality. Blu-ray takes up a lot more space though. But I don't watch Blu-ray. Then you buy a digital media player like a "WD Live TV Hub" which can play DVD files from hard drive. Now you have 250 DVDs available to play at random instead of being limited to single DVD (unless you buy a DVD jukebox, they don't make DVD changers anymore). So its just more convenient. It's also much more convenient to transport a single hard drive versus 250 discs. Also less likely for somebody to find your movies. If you are really worried you can encrypt your disc or use hidden partitions. But that seems like overkill. Then consider risk of DVDs getting scratched, broken, or degrading over time. When I copied my DVD collection to hard drive I found about 5% of the discs now had read errors. I was pissed because a couple were classics that are no longer in distribution. If they are on hard drive you can make backups. The cost of a 2 TB drive is now about $80-90. A few years ago they were selling for $200+. Over time larger capacity drives will come out allowing you to put even more on disk. After I copied my collection to hard drive I was able to throw away two boxes of DVDs and just deal with one hard drive. My only complaint is that if I want to backup that drive it takes a long time using USB 2.0. But supposedly next gen USB will be much faster. If you got the cash you could use RAID but that's too expensive for me. Also if you download video files from online websites like kink.com you can store them on the same hard drive with your DVD copies. [Link]
MrTibbs Member 372 Posts 7/09	Posted - Jan 14 2011 : 11:12PM ameelynn1980 wrote: what I usually do is subscribe to any given site for about a month, every six months, and then download the movies from the back catalog that actually interest me. Click to expand I do the same thing, only I try to wait 9 months to a year to join back up again. And I check their listing on thebestporn.com to make sure they've been updating regularly since the last time I was a member. The only site I subscribe to continuously is videobox. I delete older files from my computer's hard drive once it gets crowded in there and transfer everything to external hard drives on a regular basis. I'm also considering getting a 2TB external hard drive to back everything up just in case I ever have problems with the ones I'm using now. [Link]

Harri Patel Senior Member #SDNY he's all yours. -- Michael Steele 5110 Posts 3/03	Posted - Jan 14 2011 : 11:21PM ameelynn1980 wrote: But I've read a number of forum postings/articles which suggest that its really bad for your computer's registry to have too many files (of any size) in any given folder and that its also not good to have more than a few very large (300Mb+) files in any one folder. Click to expand Sounds like nonsense to me. Keep whatever files you want in whatever folder(s) you want and let the machine worry about keeping it all straight. Just remember that hard drives can and do fail, so keep backups of anything that is important to you. Data that you don't have two extra copies of is data you don't care about. [Link]
Prophit Member 378 Posts 1/07	Posted - Jan 15 2011 : 3:56AM zambi wrote: My only complaint is that if I want to backup that drive it takes a long time using USB 2.0. But supposedly next gen USB will be much faster. If you got the cash you could use RAID but that's too expensive for me. Click to expand You could do it like me and get a Sharkoon HDD port with Esata or USB 3.0 on it (if your motherboard has an Esata or USB 3.0 connection). That way you can use internal HDDs instead of external ones (cheaper and faster). So you basically have all the advantages of both external and internal HDDs. Edited by - Prophit on 1/15/2011 3:58:31 AM [Link]
Prophit Member 378 Posts 1/07	Posted - Jan 15 2011 : 3:57AM double post - sorry Edited by - Prophit on 1/15/2011 3:58:03 AM [Link]
Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00	Posted - Jan 15 2011 : 11:01AM I recently bought a NAS and installed four 2TB hard drives in a raid 5 configuration essentially giving me 6TB with an automatic backup should one of the drives go bad. this is in addition to the two external HD's that are connected directly to the WDTV. I'm in the process of moving a lot of files from the internal HD's on my PC to the NAS. It's a great solution to go with my WDTV Live+ Edited by - Bill on 1/15/2011 11:08:53 AM [Link]
Rod Member 908 Posts 8/10	Posted - Jan 15 2011 : 1:12PM If you have a laptop, the portable USB drives are nice. They are about $100 for a TB and they don't require any external power. The new ones also support USB 3.0. You can attach them to a Media Player like Oplay, your laptop, or desktop. They're compact - about the size of a deck of cards, and portable. They can fit in your pocket or just throw it in a drawer when not in use. [Link]
Zoid Senior Member Boobies and Anal 2004 Posts 5/04	Posted - Jan 15 2011 : 9:05PM ameelynn1980 wrote: its really bad for your computer's registry to have too many files (of any size) in any given folder and that its also not good to have more than a few very large (300Mb+) files in any one folder. Click to expand I wouldn't worry about it, however, I did notice that having lots of files (and I mean LOTS) of files in one folder may slow things down when you open that folder for the first time in Windows Explorer. Not a big deal, really, especially on modern and fast computers. Personally, I also use external USB drives. Forget DVDs. In fact, I've transferred all my DVDs onto external drives as well. So far, it's sufficient, but I am also thinking about possibly getting a NAS. Btw, if security (privacy) is important to you, you can encrypt your drives with TrueCrypt or something. Regarding the size of files, what I often do is download FullHD clips (if available) and edit the crap out of them. Then recode them at 720p or perhaps even at SD. That saves me lots of space. [Link]
Tug3005 Senior Member 1152 Posts 12/10	Posted - Jan 16 2011 : 8:59AM Zoid wrote: Regarding the size of files, what I often do is download FullHD clips (if available) and edit the crap out of them. Then recode them at 720p or perhaps even at SD. That saves me lots of space. Click to expand This is a very practical approach and the one I use most often. If it's not a good storyline that your saving for couples viewing often 1/4 of the clip is repetitive babble that just takes up disk space,also custom compilations are fun to play with. [Link]
zambi Senior Member 1451 Posts 3/10	Posted - Jan 17 2011 : 2:16AM Tug3005 wrote: Zoid wrote: Regarding the size of files, what I often do is download FullHD clips (if available) and edit the crap out of them. Then recode them at 720p or perhaps even at SD. That saves me lots of space. Click to expand This is a very practical approach and the one I use most often. If it's not a good storyline that your saving for couples viewing often 1/4 of the clip is repetitive babble that just takes up disk space,also custom compilations are fun to play with. Click to expand If a movie only has one or two great scenes I copy them to a compilation tape instead of keeping the entire dvd. So I had a bunch of these compilation tapes on VHS I had accumulated over the years. Then when DVD recorders came out I copied the VHS tapes to DVD. Then ripped the DVD to hard drive later. Now I'm looking for a more convenient way to make compilations on hard drive directly instead of going from VHS to DVD to hard drive. Editing compilations on a DVD is more cumbersome that using VHS like if you want to copy only segments or go back and erase. [Link]
Rod Member 908 Posts 8/10	Posted - Jan 17 2011 : 3:18AM zambi wrote: Now I'm looking for a more convenient way to make compilations on hard drive directly instead of going from VHS to DVD to hard drive. Editing compilations on a DVD is more cumbersome that using VHS like if you want to copy only segments or go back and erase. Click to expand Handbrake allows you to select specific chapters from a DVD and save it to your HD as a video file like MP4. It does take some computer time to convert the DVD, but the result is a file that's specifically that portion you want and in much better quality than VHS. You can save in whatever resolution you want including the original DVD resolution or something smaller if you prefer smaller file sizes. It certainly makes it easier later to find just the scene you want to enjoy. [Link]
ameelynn1980 Member 629 Posts 9/07	Posted - Jan 17 2011 : 11:37AM Good information. Thanks to all. [Link]

Zoid Senior Member Boobies and Anal 2004 Posts 5/04	Posted - Jan 17 2011 : 6:35PM zambi wrote: Now I'm looking for a more convenient way to make compilations on hard drive directly instead of going from VHS to DVD to hard drive. Editing compilations on a DVD is more cumbersome that using VHS like if you want to copy only segments or go back and erase. Click to expand I used to use VirtualDub with MPEG2 plugin for this purpose. It allows you to open VOB files directly and simply save the bits that you want. Big advantage is that you can actually see the footage you're editing. Once you're done, you'll end up with a bunch of XVID AVI files which you can "glue" together without quality loss (by using direct stream option). Not the most elegant way of editing a video, but it was simple enough. Handbrake is great if you want to rip a chapter or an entire movie, but sometimes you just want small bits and pieces. [Link]
zambi Senior Member 1451 Posts 3/10	Posted - Jan 19 2011 : 6:23PM ^I know about VirtualDub which has been around a while. But I never heard of "Handbrake" which Rod mentioned. Handbrake sounds like the way to go for making compilations from DVD directly to hard disk files (i.e. video editing software combined with video file conversion or transcoding). Here's a list of other video editing software program: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_editing_software http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_video_editing_software Here's some info on Handbrake which wasn't included in list above. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HandBrake Any comments regarding use of these tools for making compilations would be appreciated. [Link]
Rod Member 908 Posts 8/10	Posted - Jan 19 2011 : 7:01PM Handbrake is an open source video transcoder program for Mac, PC, or Linux It's free and works great. Give it a test drive and if you don't like it, dump it. http://handbrake.fr/downloads.php [Link]
Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00	Posted - Jan 19 2011 : 8:49PM Don't use version 0.9.5 of Handbrake. It's really old. Use the nightly release that can be found here. There are a lot more features in the nightly than there are in 0.9.5. Don't worry about the warning that the nightly release is unstable. I've never had a problem with the one that I use (which is now a couple months old). Also, Handbrake doesn't work with decrypted DVD's. If you want to use Handbrake on a Decrypted DVD, you will first need to use other software to decrypt it. You'll need to find information about decrypting software somewhere else because it is illegal to use (it volates the DMCA) and it's a forbidden topic at ADT. [Link]
Harri Patel Senior Member #SDNY he's all yours. -- Michael Steele 5110 Posts 3/03	Posted - Jan 19 2011 : 10:07PM Don't you mean "encrypted DVD's"? [Link]
Bill All-Star Member 5334 Posts 6/00	Posted - Jan 19 2011 : 10:49PM ^ Yes I do. [Link]
JohnW Senior Member 1351 Posts 6/08	Posted - Jan 21 2011 : 5:29AM ameelynn1980 wrote: But I've read a number of forum postings/articles which suggest that its really bad for your computer's registry to have too many files (of any size) in any given folder and that its also not good to have more than a few very large (300Mb+) files in any one folder. Click to expand As others have said.. that makes no sense. I wouldn't worry about it. [Link]
jayo All-Star Member 2117 Posts 7/04	Posted - Jan 21 2011 : 10:34PM JohnW wrote: ameelynn1980 wrote: But I've read a number of forum postings/articles which suggest that its really bad for your computer's registry to have too many files (of any size) in any given folder and that its also not good to have more than a few very large (300Mb+) files in any one folder. Click to expand As others have said.. that makes no sense. I wouldn't worry about it. Click to expand I find it hard to believe I would ever have more files in a single folder than the Windows O/S already has in some of its own. Have you seen many files are in some of those directories, and how much space that shit takes up? The other thing is (to me anyway), if you've got THAT MUCH stuff, how are you ever going to keep it straight? Are you ever going to watch it? If it were me, I'm sure I'd forget I ever had most of it. [Link]