Legacy LD5

I got like well over a thousand screens of feet, soles, and miscellaneous shots of the character. I would like to share these screens on this forum of these screens from various games, movies and TV shows. Problem is I cant link or post each one on the forum. Instead I like to make a zip file and make it downloadable.

Is there anyway I could get alot of space for this? Also make it possible for people to download the zip file on Lava Dome Five main site?

thanks

Hey, why not take a third option? Dino gave me a hefty 200MB for my Motherlode, and when I filled that, he doubled it.* Just ask him for your own member site! If you need help adding files through FTP, you can ask me or Ahastar or, heck, just about anyone else with their own Domespace.

*Sadly, I haven't added much, or even found much worth adding since then. Sure, new episodes of my favorite sprotchy shows keep being made, but what good is adding a new shot or two when I already have a dozen angles of every character? There's only so much variety in clawed feet, ya know.

I would need well over a gig of space, probably higher. There are alot of pics on my PC.

No one's going to want to download a gig of pictures like that. You need to (a) be pickier and choose only unique ones and (b) compress them a lil'.

That... complicates things somewhat. There are a myriad of file-sharing web services out there (Most of them having "File" in the name), but from what I can tell there is an inverse proportion between ease of upload and ease of download. For example, MegaUpload allows anyone to upload up to 1024 MB at a time, but said file can only be accessed by those given a randomly-generated link provided by the site when the upload is complete. There is no file-search function for non-members. Those who opt for free registration still cannot browse files, but "premium" ($10 per month) accounts have access to a list of "Top 100 Downloads" as if that's worth anything. In addition, those whom you give the link to can only download roughly 100MB every X hours, and single files over 500MB require "premium" membership to download at all.

However! There are ways around this. One is to find a smaller site with smaller upload limits but looser download restrictions. Another is to use 7-Zip to divide the file into chunks of 100MB as it's being compressed. And of course, a third option (man, do I love these) is to, you know... not post so many darn pics! The point I made earlier about "only so much variety" was meant as a casual aside, but now I feel it deserves your attention and consideration. Once you've taken the first two steps in archiving your collection, allow me to "beta test" it. Quality control, in a sense. Cropping, resizing, flat-out pruning... I'll do as much as I can to optimize your own Motherlode for easier downloading, if you're willing.

Yeah, no "gigabytes-of-basically-just-stuff" files please. That goes for everyone out there on the interwebs. Raptors strongly dislike those.
(Not only does it suck but also is inefficient to have people download huge file collections hoping for one certain thing in them or then digging through them and realizing there's nothing to their liking in it.)

*has had his happen to him more than once*

Why don't you put it into a torrent and give out a link to distribute it? Or just post the ones you like the most.

One way to cut down on space is to run through any pictures (but don't go overwrite the originals!) and resize them. If need be use a little more compression (but not too much!) and if any are bitmaps (".bmp") then convert to JPEG. For videos they can usually be resized (make sure you have the source video ), and one little tip to help reduce size - if your video is stereo, make it mono! That helps to knock down file size.

Always keep the originals though once it's compressed data is lost. The same mantra is true for both analogue and digital, i.e. once it's gone (and if you don't have the original) it's gone forever. Can't get it back. OT, I am often amazed at people who think (referring to the world of tv/electronics) a $15 ariel booster will do as well as a $100 TV antenna, thinking that it'll put the lack of signal quality back. It won't.

Where possible though always work from the original files if you have them. Alas you can't compress an already compressed file in the same way you can't zip a zipfile 10 times over and make it 10 times smaller. It'll get bigger! And unfortunatly compressing already compressed formats will often fail, leading to worse quality video and increased filesize.

As for file uploading/downloading sites outside of here on companies' servers, be careful. Remember to read any TOS (terms of service). Some of these places could put a clause in their TOS and grab the rights to your work! Always important to read the TOS (or EULA for that matter).

A torrent is a good idea !

SP