image (and movie) management logic

dek

hi there,

I know there are hundreds of threads out there covering the code-side of uploading images to a database, but what I'm intereset in, is the logical part of how to manage images.

I have a website with different projects. The amount of images per project varies between 3-12 images. There's also the option to add movies to a project

I've managed to think of different ways how to manage the files.

Upload all the images/movies into a single folder and tagging them with an unique id. Store the link to the file in the db.
Create a folder for each project and store the files within. Probably still needs unique id's to prevent same-name-file-conflicts. Therefore why bother putting it in different folders in the first place,
Store the files in the table as a binary (is that the right description? me = noob). Does that work for movies? I've read threads not recommending this.

Can anyone give me tips on which way is recommended or the best option for my problem? Or is there a way I haven't thought of?

cheers,
Greg

rane500

I'd go for storing them in the database, personally. You can use BLOB quite effectively...just remember, if you're doing massive uploads you'll need to adjust the max file size for uploads, the max allowed packets for MySQL, and depending on response times you might have to adjust the web server timeout.

This avoids filesystem pitfalls and dangers galore. Caveat: if the files are super duper incredibly h00g then consider FTP or some other method of transfer.

dek

I'm now going for the save-in-folder-option. It's because the first person I asked recommended this, and he seemed very sure that it's the way to go. But I still don't know WHY it's better.

Can anybody show the pro's and con's of the different approaches? Does it matter how many images you're managing? Does it depend on if you want to manipulate (resize, crop, etc.) the images?

dek

OK, I'm calling this thread RESOLVED. I just wasn't searching in the right places.

Unfortunately, I still can't tell from the other threads which way is better. The tendency is towards storing in folders.