Tutorial: File Splitting and Hosting on Mediafire

[Payton Westlake]

This is to help with unreliable links to videos on unreliable hosting sites. Mediafire provides excellent service and sign up is free.  The only catch is for a free account the upload limit is 200MB and some HQ videos may in fact exceed that limit.

Our wonderful server host, AJ, has reminded me of WinRAR's compression ability and also the feature of actually splitting big archives into smaller ones.  This tutorial covers how to use WinRAR to split large files into manageable sizes, that will upload to Mediafire, and ultimately provide steady reliable hosting.

First off WinRAR is recommended for this tutorial.  Other compressors may have the same abilities, but this is pretty much a step-by-step guide for compressing and splitting with WinRAR.

If you don't have WinRAR, you can download it here for absolutely free:  RARLabs.com

After you've downloaded and installed WinRAR the actual process of creating split archives is very easy, but some still may be confused of exactly where to go and what to do.


Compressing and Splitting Archives

1) Find the file you want to archive.  Here I choose Skyward_II, originally started by BurnoutLS13, but later picked up and finished by Haywire.  I chose this video particularly because, well, I'm in it.



2) The next order of business is simple.  Right click the file and choose "Add to Archive..."



3) At WinRAR's dialog set the appropriate name for the video, choose either ZIP or RAR (RAR's compress better), and quality "Best".  The highlighted number is the byte limit of all parts of the archive.  200MB is approximately 200,000,000 bytes.  If you're planning on uploading the files to Mediafire, these are just within the free account limit.



4) WinRAR will compress the file, and split it into smaller archives, and label them with part numbers.



Uploading:  Mediafire

The next steps deal with uploading the files to Mediafire.  Of course signup for a free account, activate, login.

1) Notice the stipulations for keeping your account active.  If you don't meet these requirements your hosting will be shut down and effectively killing all your links.  Basically, at least once every two months, just login to your Mediafire account, so your videos will always be available.



2) Go ahead and create a folder where you will upload all the parts of your video.  Actually name the folder with the same title of your video.  It will be easier that way.





3) Once you've created your folder, simply click on the folder name to go into it.  You'll know what folder you're in by looking at the top left.  After you know you're in the right folder, simply click "Upload To This Folder".



4) The resulting window will come up, click in the yellow boxed area, and the dialog for choosing your files will appear.



5) Choose your files and click "Open".



6) Confirm you're uploading the right files.  Click "Begin Uploading Files".  Watch the progress, which may take a while, and wait for it to complete.



7) Once the files complete uploading, your folder should show that the parts are finally hosted.



Clicking on the name of the part will result in a page like this, which also provides you with the URL to that particular part.




Downloading

*Remember that, unless you have all the parts of a particular video, you will not be able to extract it completely, and thus not be able to use it.

1) Downloading the files can be a bit of a pain.  Unless you have a paid account on Mediafire, you can't multi-select and download files one after another.  So you'll have to download each part seperately.



2) Finally, go to the place where you saved the files and simply pick the first part.  Double click so WinRAR opens the file.



3) Simply select the file and extract to a desired place.  You'll see that you don't even have to worry about extracting the other piece(s).  As long as all the pieces are in the same folder, they'll automatically extract one after another.




4) Tada!  There is a new video for you to view.



TIP:  You actually don't have to extract the video in order to watch it.  If you simply double click the file in the first part, WinRAR will automatically extract and store the video in HDD cache space, and play the video.  This is true even for split archives.  This will save you lots of space instead of extracting copies of videos and doubling up on memory usage.


I hope this proves helpful, and creates more reliable sources from which stunters can download their favorite videos.



-PW

[Seeker]

awesome tut.

I hope it works   

[STREEM]

great work man

[fedex]

perspicuous, decent description

[AJ Collins]

http://www.blackslime.com/PaytonsImageHosting/SplitMedia/0016.png
Just click on the download folder button

[Payton Westlake]

That's for the hoster isn't it?  It isn't for people who go to dl the files from the hoster?



-PW

EDIT:  Yes that's only for the hoster(s) themselves.  See the URL isn't specific:  http://www.mediafire.com/myfiles.php.

[AJ Collins]

Ah. I just looked again, you either have to be the uploader or have a pro account.

[Payton Westlake]

See.  And I said that in my tutorial you silly.  

No worries I still give you cookie.   :laugh: