Compression | Speed, Potential savings, Quality loss

[theoxis]

What is the problem you are having with rclone?

I am somewhat new to compression within rclone, but not perse rclone itself (I've been using rclone for over five years) +/-.

I have a database of movie files that have high quality. To safe space, I am considering to compress those files. Now, I'm wondering the following things that I couldn't find concrete answers on through the wiki or the forum. Excuse me if these questions have already been answered!

Taken that I would add compression to my configuration. Say that I configure it to compress level 5.
(1) Would I loose (video) quality upon playback? These files are UHD and have lossless audio, would that be noticeable or would it just compress and decompress resulting in the original file?
(2) How much would one even save in terms of storage space when compressing video files on a remote? Is this even interesting at all or would it be more something you do with text files?
(3) How much would this affect the playback speed while streaming? Right now I'm using a dedicated N100 Plex box which works solid. Would this decompressing add a huge workload on the machine?
(4) I assume that I would first compress and after that encrypt the file, in terms of remote order. Correct?
(5) I know that the compression remote is technically still experimental but also has been like this for a couple of years. Are there serious practical cases where indeed files got corrupted or is this a super duper edge case warning? I have like 500 files, I wouldn't cry if one gets corrupted. But if htere is a big chance of like half to break it would be a different story and something to weigh in whether this is even going to give me any benefit (the amount of space that I potentially could save).

Long list of questions. Everyone who takes time to respond is already my hero and is greatly appreciated

Run the command 'rclone version' and share the full output of the command.

rclone v1.66.0
- os/version: debian 11.9 (64 bit)
- os/kernel: 5.10.0-28-amd64 (x86_64)
- os/type: linux
- os/arch: amd64
- go/version: go1.22.1
- go/linking: static
- go/tags: none

Which cloud storage system are you using? (eg Google Drive)

Compression > Encryption > Google Drive

rclone mount HGCrypt1:/ /mnt/Crypt1 --allow-other --gid 1000 --uid 1000 --umask 002 --dir-cache-time 9999h --vfs-cache-mode full --vfs-read-chunk-size 32M --vfs-read-chunk-size-limit 256M --vfs-cache-max-size 64G --vfs-fast-fingerprint --vfs-cache-max-age 9999h --cache-dir /tmp/.cache1 --tpslimit 12 --tpslimit-burst 0 --log-level DEBUG --log-file /tmp/crypt1.log --read-only

Please run 'rclone config redacted' and share the full output. If you get command not found, please make sure to update rclone.

[HGDrive1]
type = drive
scope = drive
token = XXX
team_drive = XXX
use_trash = false

[HGCrypt1]
type = crypt
remote = HGDrive1:
filename_encryption = standard
directory_name_encryption = true
password = XXX
password2 = XXX

[HGCompress1]
type = compress
remote = HGCrypt1:
compression_mode = gzip
level = 5

A log from the command that you were trying to run with the -vv flag

x

[asdffdsa (jojothehumanmonkey)]

tl;dr, trying to compress media files using simple file compression, such as gzip, will not prove effective.
in fact, the resultant file can be larger that the source file.

just pick a single file, compress it, see what happens.
given that rclone uses gzip, you can pick a single file and compress it with gzip utility. 7zip can compress using gzip format.
then should have the answer to most of your questions.

@theoxis

(1) Would I loose (video) quality upon playback? These files are UHD and have lossless audio, would that be noticeable or would it just compress and decompress resulting in the original file?

no lose of quailty. would just compress and decompress the original file.

@theoxis

(2) How much would one even save in terms of storage space when compressing video files on a remote? Is this even interesting at all or would it be more something you do with text files?

would save little to nothing. sometimes the compressed file will actually be larger than the original file.

@theoxis

(3) How much would this affect the playback speed while streaming? Right now I'm using a dedicated N100 Plex box which works solid. Would this decompressing add a huge workload on the machine?

little to none affect. not a huge load.

@theoxis

(4) I assume that I would first compress and after that encrypt the file, in terms of remote order. Correct?

correct

[theoxis]

Hey @asdffdsa thanks for the reply.

Sounds like me that basically a trial-and-error situation would be best to figure this out; compress one file (or a small folder) and check if the result is feasible.

Am I right to conclude from your writing that compression has a bigger / better effect on files other than media files?

[kapitainsky]

@theoxis

Am I right to conclude from your writing that compression has a bigger / better effect on files other than media files?

It depends. Some files compress very well (text file for example) and some not. IMO it does not make any sense to use compression for media files as they are most likely compressed already by some very efficient encoders like x264 or x265. It is a bit like trying to compress zip files again - waste of time.

[asdffdsa (jojothehumanmonkey)]

@theoxis

Sounds like me that basically a trial-and-error situation would be best to figure this out; compress one file (or a small folder) and check if the result is feasible.

yes, that is the way i would go about it.

@theoxis

Am I right to conclude from your writing that compression has a bigger / better effect on files other than media files?

it depends on the file and its contents.