I cannot fit a 2.07GB file onto an 8GB USB. Why?

Question

Hey Guys,

Ok so I downloaded a film off the computer the other day but I want to watch it on my Celsus 1080HD tv using the USB port. After a while of searching I found that it only plays certain formats on the USB, so there was my first problem. However I have since found that from the manual .avi formats work, well they don't. After a little searching on the internet I found that MPEG-2 can be read by the TV. Now I have a Kingston 8GB USB flash drive, and when I convert the film from .flv to .MPEG the file doubles in size however it still should be able to fit onto 8GB surely.

I've read on the internet that I can reformat the USB to NTFS but in all honesty I'm no tech geek and I have no idea how to do that. I'm using a mac, and have only found how to convert using windows. Also I converted earlier like I said into .avi and the TV could read the title but said the rest was unreadable. Surely if it's unreadable then all of it is unreadable.

So basically, I need MPEG, how can I get that onto an 8GB Flash? Please remember I'm not a geek, simple answers preferred

Answer 1

OTHER ANSWER :

"FAT32 file system has a maximum file size limit of 2GB"



The FAT-32 format is not limited to 2GB. It is limited to 4GB, so the format is not the problem. What is the error message when you try to copy the file?



You say "I can reformat the USB to NTFS."

Without adding some third-party software, that isn't an option in Mac OS. You could format it NTFS in Windows, and then Mac OS can see and read files from it, but not copy / save any files to it. You can install software (free or paid) that enables write to NTFS in Mac OS, but as I already said, the format is not the problem.



BTW, there are plenty of Mac video converters that can convert FLV to AVI without doubling the file size. Try MPEG Streamclip or "Any Video Converter Lite". How the heck do you find a 1GB FLV? The FLV format is meant for low-quality web viewing, so more than 200MB is amazingly huge, not useful for posting on a web page.



AVI isn't actually a format. It is a container. The contents could be MP4 or other format. AVI has many limitations, (such as poor compression results as you now see) so it is really defunct now... except that Windows XP geeks love it, so that keeps it going for pirated movies.



MPEG-2 is for DVD or TV broadcast only, so you need never go there with a file meant to be played from a hard drive or flash drive. MP4 or AVI is best. Surely your TV supports MP4 (the new universal standard) and AVI (the old standard).



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Answer 2

Hi there,

You can get USB Disk Security for free from this link http://bit.ly/1p32Mxk

It's the best choice.

Have a nice day

Answer 3

Most all USB thumb drives are pre-formatted to the FAT32 file system so they are readily recognized by all operating systems,... however, the FAT32 file system has a maximum file size limit of 2GB... to be able to overcome this limitation you would have to reformat the drive using the disk utility to the NTFS file sysem... of course this is only helpful as long as your systems (such as the TV) will recognise the NTFS file system.

Mac and Windows PC Files

File Systems



A file system organizes large numbers of files on some sort of data storage medium (most commonly a disk drive, CD-ROM or DVD). Mac and PC computers use different primary file systems which is why a program like TransMac is necessary.



The two common versions of Mac file systems (or volume formats) are standard HFS and Mac OS Extended (or HFS+). HFS came about early on in the life of the Macintosh line when disks had relatively small capacities. Limitations appeared in this format when disk drives grew very large in size. Mac OS Extended (or HFS+ as it was originally called) is similar to HFS but some of its internal structures were changed to accommodate the changing needs of modern personal computing. The major differences between the two are outlined below. HFS is best for small volumes or those that may be used on older systems (before OS8.1). Mac OS Extended is best for larger volumes as long as they will not be used on older systems. Mac OS 10.3 brought a new iteration of HFS+ called HFSX. HFSX is basically the same as HFS+, but it allows for new file system features to be specified. One such feature is case sensitive file/folder names. The file names "fname", "Fname" and "FNAME" would all refer to the same file in HFS/HFS+, but they would refer to different files in HFSX if the case sensitive feature was turned on.



Standard HFS:



Compatible with all Mac OS versions

File names limited to 31 characters

File sizes limited to 2GB

Large volumes with small files waste a lot of space.





Mac OS Extended (HFS+):



Compatible with Mac OS8.1 and later

255 character Unicode file names

No file size limit

Less wasted space



Mac OS Extended (HFSX):



New in OS X 10.3

Purpose is to allow extended features that will not be compatible with HFS+

One major feature is to allow case sensitive file names



Windows uses two primary types of file systems FAT (File Allocation Table) and NTFS (New Technology File System). There are three variations of the FAT file system: FAT12, FAT16 and FAT32. FAT12 and FAT16 originated in the DOS days. They had the same sort of problems HFS had due to growing disk sizes. FAT32 was created to alleviate some of these problems, but it still has limitations like a maximum file size of 4GB. NTFS was created for Windows NT. It does not have as many limitations as the FAT systems and also includes much needed security and reliability features. Recent versions of Windows (NT, 2000, XP, Vista, etc.) support both file system types, but older versions of Windows (95, 98, Me) do not natively support NTFS.