how do i transfer a large .avi file over the internet

By my calculations, downloading a 70GB file on my 3Mb connection would take over just 55 hours going at a continuous rate of 360Kpbs.  Of course when you factor in network congestion and the route the traffic takes over the internet then this can increase by quite a lot.  But the most likely reason for slower times would be your upload rate - i.e. how fast you can send the files long their way and the speed of other links in the chain to the destination.  Again this will really depend on the type of Internet connection you are using.

Also, don't forget that if I've spend 50 hours downloading the file and there are some corruptions, then it means the file is generally unusable to me unless I download the whole thing again, this is protected against to some degree but can still happen.  For these reasons I would support the comments by lherrou above and suggest you split the files ideally with yenc.
Also something to consider is that maybe you could just split/burn them to DVD and then mail them to the recipient?

though its extremely huge, you probably would put it on several computers in a university lab, and seed it with some torrent progs.. because it will take a long time to send them you really want something that will resume ;)

but what are these files? raw data from a camcorder? then you would want to make it a divx, xvid or something like that and you can easily cut it down to a couple of hundred meg (depends on the resolution // quality you want)

try to 7zip it, but it costs so much time
yeh~ bittorrent as nanne said

For files of such large size the best option would be to use winRAR to compress and split the file into smaller manageable units.
Then you can use a program called quickpar which will create recover blocks for your files, so that in the event that someone downloading your split files encounters an error in one or more of the individual split up files, if he/she has quickpar they can do a repair on the file using recovery blocks which are also downloaded along with the main files. This method of compressing and using a recovery utility is used alot by newsgroups which post files of very large size, such as video and binary executables.

A 60-80 GB AVI appears to be an uncompressed clip (how much minutes is it?)
I don't suggest you to use some kind of winzip or winrar, you won't obtain a better compression than 20-50%.
You can compress video with an encoder and still maintain AVI format, with at least 90% compression.
Even you can use standard Windows Movie Maker to do it.

Put the files on a backup tape or an external hard drive and ship that to the destination. You don't have to mess around with burning a bunch of disks, and the files will probably still get there faster than if you try to use the internet.

I agree with Jaime Olivares.. check your data may be they are in RAW Format...

so first try to convert them....

hi,
i belive if i encode it in any manner i will suffer a loss of quality.   Is a  a lossless compression possible on a AVI file.

SanPrabhu,

Can you tell us more about what it is (filming and file details, not content) and what needs to happen with it? We might be able to make better recommendations with that information.

LHerrou

its a video .avi file  basically  raw footage of videos. I need to send these files periodically to an editing firm which is across the state. i was wondering if i can speed up the delivery by using the internet. i heard there were some fast ftp programs. and if i can compress it somehow without loss of quality, there might be a possible way to transfer it.

>>i belive if i encode it in any manner i will suffer a loss of quality<<
If you use WinRAR you can select the compression method as "Store" which will not compress the files
within the archive. From there you can either split the *.rar
http://www.win-rar.com

In WinZIP you can select the compression as "None".
http://www.winzip.com

spiderfix, RAR and ZIP provide lossless compression. There's no reason to avoid using compression in this case, as the original file will not be changed by the compression. Only use of lossy compression such as MPEG will affect the quality of the files.

hi

how ever big the file size might be...you can just transfer the file using "Serv-U FTP" program.
you can download the software for free from http://www.serv-u.com/customer/record.asp

this software needs to be installed on atleast one PC...either the PC on which the file exists....or the PC on to which you want to send the file.

1. if you set up the software on your system, then just create a username/password for the other person so that he logs onto your system using his IP (ex : ftp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) and copies the file.

or

2. if your friend sets this software on his system, then ask him to provide you with a username/password and also ask him to enable "write" features for this username. then you can just log on to his system and just copy the file onto his system.

this should help you out.....

...and if you are using a router for your internet, then don't forget to foward the ports...

just correcting the mistake on my previous comment

1. if you set up the software on your system, then just create a username/password for the other person so that he logs onto your system using "YOUR" IP (ex : ftp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) and copies the file.

or

2. if your friend sets this software on his system, then ask him to provide you with a username/password and also ask him to enable "write" features for this username. then you can just log on to his system using "HIS" IP (ex : ftp://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) and just copy the file onto his system.

serving a file that size is madness. Even if you could get a stable connection for that long, it's gonna take a LOT of time, i can send a harddisk, or burn some dvd's and send them in maybe a tenth of the time involved.. (well, depends on your connection ofcourse)

bottomline is: no, there is no fast way to do this. this file is just too big. period.

you can
a) send the complete file on a harddisk via snailmail
b) split the file using winrar, burn it on dvd's / cd's and send it by snailmail
c) compress the file before sending it through the internet

if you want lossles compression you will not get  the results needed to send via internet, so the only option voor real compression is that you take some quality loss.
read this for understanding of compression:
http://www.deskshare.com/Resources/articles/dmc_Compression_AVI.aspx

google can easily help you with compression software, just a quick search gave me
http://www.triltech.com/avi_file_compressors.htm
http://www.deskshare.com/dmc.aspx
http://www.swiftsoft.de/mmavi.html

U can see if they really mean it???

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There is a lossless AVI codec, called Huffyuv (get it here http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/codecs_and_filters/huffyuv.cfm), but even with the compression the files will still be huge (say 30 or 40 gigs)

As a video editor, I would not want to use the internet to download the raw footage. It would take to much time, hog bandwidth, and the chance of corrupt files is very large. (I'm repeating what was suggested by everone else...)

When I do a project, I prefer the client to ship the original tapes -- this is the least likely to get damaged during shipping. If there is no tapes then I will ask for the footage on a hard drive.

LRI41,  nanne's comment was way out of line, but I don't think your suggestions are at all helpful. Even if these services can handle 80gig files, they are plain HTTP transfers, which does not include the sort of error checking necessary in handling files this big. Odds of a successful and error-free transfer are slim.

Also, because it must first be uploaded to an intermediate server, probably in a distant location, and then downloaded to the recipient, using a service like this will effectively double both the transfer time and the potential for errors to accumulate. In other words, the asker would be better off doing a standard file transfer directly to the recipient's server, which is still slower than using a courier or overnight service. Unless you're sitting on an Abilene connection, the internet option's just not practical.

Of course the AVI file used contains RAW data "which is highly compressable"
try to compress your AVI using WINRAR or WINACE and divide the result compressed file "there is option WINRAR and WINACE for doing that automatically".
the result divided compress file will have suitable size.