Question for the Computer Wizards

[Stephanie]

My PC is acting up lately. I have ALOT of videos that I want to save, but I only have a CD/RW and and DVD ROM, so I can't burn them. Before going out and buying an external DVD recorder, would I be able to use one of those little flash memory sticks to save these too? I'm assuming that because I'm not saving the videos to a certain type of media like a DVD that it will keep the file intact. It would be like saving the files to a floppy disk, right?

Thanks!

[Meso]

Yeah you can save video format files to flash disks... And yes it would be like saving them to a floppy... I don't know about america but the price of a flash disk is around R200 (divide by 6 for $) and a DVD writer is R450.. So it's up to you to think if you would rather spend a bit more and get a dvd/wr and then have that for future large files you may want to store, as flash disks are rather small

[Stephanie]

Thanks Meso!!! I was thinking of a quick and dirty way to get them saved.

[beachbum_al]

stephanie

do you buy online. if you do just go to google and do a search. you might be able to find something online cheaper. i know the camera i looking at is a lot cheaper online than going to the store and buying it.

[nholley]

You can burn video files to a CD-RW disc (as long as you have a burner!)

A DVD burner is amazingly cheap these days...I just bought a Dual Layer DVD burner for around $50.

That said, having a lot of video files on your PC will not be the reason it is acting up.

[Stephanie]

You can burn video files to a CD-RW disc (as long as you have a burner!)

A DVD burner is amazingly cheap these days...I just bought a Dual Layer DVD burner for around $50.

That said, having a lot of video files on your PC will not be the reason it is acting up.

I've tried that on the CD-RW once but it converts them to an audio file. Maybe I'll try it again - if I then try and save it to my hard drive again, would they play as a video?

My PC is just acting up - rebooting, I had a "crash" error message two weeks ago and when I ran the initial diagnostics, it said it didn't find anything. I have plenty of room on my hard drive and I've defrag'd it and do the usual cleanup work.

[alicia-w]

you can always buy a thumb drive and keep the videos on there

[nholley]

[[/quote]

I've tried that on the CD-RW once but it converts them to an audio file. Maybe I'll try it again - if I then try and save it to my hard drive again, would they play as a video?

My PC is just acting up - rebooting, I had a "crash" error message two weeks ago and when I ran the initial diagnostics, it said it didn't find anything. I have plenty of room on my hard drive and I've defrag'd it and do the usual cleanup work.[/quote]

How did you burn it to the CD-RW?

Did you use something like Nero or the system built in to XP? (I am assuming you are running XP)

Have you done a virus/spyware sweep recently?

[Stephanie]

I think that I may have used Windows Media Player - I don't remember.

My Norton is on all the time, I just did a disk cleanup, tonight, and I do run Adaware and Spybot - the last time may have been a few weeks ago.

[Audrey2Katrina]

I switched from Norton to Bullguard, FWIW.... they gave me a 1 Gig online backup drive.... dunno how big those videos are; but I also have the DVD burner which I use to backup all my old videos and JPEG's and doc files so they don't clutter the memory. Should anything happen to my important files, I can always download 'em back from my Bullguard backup.

A2K

[nholley]

I have no idea why you are having trouble burning Movie Files. Maybe try just dragging and dropping them onto the disc, you will then get a popup from XP saying you have files waiting to burn.....maybe burning them a different way will help. This will still not be the reason the PC is acting up.

[azsnowman]

I just, this past Monday, had a CD-DVD burner installed on my computer at the computer tech shop here in town, it's a NERO (Sony) burner. It's internal and the cost installed, $75! I've copied ALL of my videos to CD's, my music to CD's, our business files to CD's and TONS and TONS of photos!

Dennis

[Stephanie]

Thanks everyone. I'll give that a try nholley!

[HurryKane]

For what you're trying to do (keep the video from being converted or otherwise changed) be sure when you are burning to a disc that you tell it you are making a DATA disc, not a MEDIA disc. If you burn it as a data disc it's just a copy of whatever you put on there, no special tricks or anything like that.

[Stephanie]

I am burning them to a CD-RW now. I think that's what I did the last time HurryKane. This time I went into the Control Panel and opened my Windows Media Player where my videos are stored - they're mostly clips of concerts and tv appearances. Normally, when I insert a blank cd in there I will get a pop-up asking me if I want to burn a cd using one software package or another. This time I went to the folders and on the left side it it has "video tasks" where it asks if I want to burn the files to a cd.

Anyway - IT WORKED!!!!

I just wanted to try and save them on SOMETHING just in case my PC does ultimately crash.

Thanks again everyone!!

[Audrey2Katrina]

For what you're trying to do (keep the video from being converted or otherwise changed) be sure when you are burning to a disc that you tell it you are making a DATA disc, not a MEDIA disc. If you burn it as a data disc it's just a copy of whatever you put on there, no special tricks or anything like that.

YES! That is extremely important!

A2K