Just as thousands of enthusiasts managed to run Doom on the strangest devices, Shrek has become a sort of "Hello World" for anything with basic multimedia capabilities. Now, the movie alone poses no challenge to something like a Raspberry Pi, but a Reddit user decided to take an extra turn by loading the full version of Shrek onto a single floppy disk. You read that right: the famous ogre, in just 1.44 megabytes.
The best Blu-ray disc available holds about 128 gigabytes. A standard USB stick with that capacity usually doesn't exceed 20 euros, and there are no major difficulties in obtaining hard drives with several terabytes. In other words, storage options are abundant, and if someone wants to keep high-definition movies, they can do so without giving up a single byte… unless there's a challenge at stake. For example: How small can a whole movie get?
A Reddit user known as "GreedyPaint" decided to find out in the most retro way possible. First, he created a sort of VCR based on a Raspberry Pi (dubbed LimaTek Diskmaster) connected to an old CRT mini TV. Then he prepared a custom edition of the x265 codec, and finally, the "victim" of the compression process was none other than Shrek, in its complete version. Where did he store it? On a floppy disk.
Shrek on a Floppy Disk
That's right, the classic DreamWorks movie, in a total of 1.37 MB (so there was a bit of space left over), and with all the glory that 120 x 96 pixels at 4 frames per second can give. The video was presented with a retro effect similar to that of old camcorders (users explain it's an app, RarevisionVHS), while the VCR has a presentation inspired by the classic RCA SelectaVision intro.
This isn't the first time Shrek has been processed this way, and judging by user interest, it won't be the last. In fact, Shrek had a special release in the Game Boy Advance Video format, as did its sequel, and several popular shows from networks like Cartoon Network.
GreedyPaint confirmed that his codec needs several additional tweaks before it can be released as open source, and some users shared several suggestions, including a Zip Drive edition, or interpolating frames to reach 12 FPS. What's next on his list? Saving a movie on a vinyl record. Personally, I think he'll succeed. After all, we've already seen a computer booting DOS from a vinyl record...
Source: Reddit
