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jAZ
06-05-2006, 02:04 PM
So my digital camera takes pretty good quality audio/video. I don't know what the format is for certain, but I just noticed that a 45 second clip recorded a file of 42MBs. I've seen many video's only much longer than that, with good quality images that were only a MB or two. How do I convert/compress this file? And can I do it for free?

jAZ
06-05-2006, 02:11 PM
Here's the data from the file properties... It's an AVI file.

jAZ
06-05-2006, 02:47 PM
Ok, so I've been poking around and I've learned a little... Just enough to make me dangerous I suspect.

Looks like AVI is the standard base format. Basically uncompressed consecutive full image frames (simiar to a movie reel).

I found a program called "AVI to MPEG Converter" that let me convert it to mpeg. That got it (with simliar quality) down to 13MB, which is much better, no doubt.

Seems like I should be able to keep the quality and get down to 2-3 MBs. Not sure if that requires tweaking the default settings (something I have no idea what I'm doing), or if I need to export to a different format all together (though I want to be default supported by Windows Media Player.

I tried to export/compress from within Windows Media Player and didn't see any way to do so. Maybe that's an option too.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

ZepSinger
06-06-2006, 05:12 AM
Here's the data from the file properties... It's an AVI file.

To get a dramatically smaller file size, you'll need to compress using Windows Media, Real, or MPEG. You currently have a kbps of 733- you should be able to take that down to 250 or so using one of the above formats. Usually, I can take a 60MB avi file down to about 6-10 with satisfying results...

Z