video file size reduction

[johnkermit1]

this might be the wrong place to ask this, but is there a free, trustworthy software i can download, to reduce the size of some AVI video files. i have some of my baby boy, and i want to upload them on to photobucket, but the file size is over 100MB....

any help is cool. thanks:confused:

[Wazza]

I've used Windows Media Encoder before. May not be the best, but does the job.
Must be included within Windows pack as I've had it on a couple of PCs

[johnkermit1]

thanks. ill look and see if i have it.

[Wazza]

Perhaps I downloaded it.. :o

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx

I used to make some computer game videos for sharing on some websites

[Tony-S]

Your best bet might be to use Apple's Quicktime to save the files as MPEG-4 containers using H.264 encoding. That is currently the most efficient video compression algorithm.

[johnkermit1]

i just downloaded it, thanks Wazza. i am using it now...it is converting the file format...not sure if it will reduce the size enough. i think i did it right....ill let you know

tony S. i dont really use apple computer. im not sure if it will work, but i will look into it. thanks!

[Tony-S]

Quicktime is a freebie for both Macs and Windows (XP and Vista). It should come with codecs for AVI and H.264.

[johnkermit1]

thanks Tony S.
ill try it out!

[Wazza]

Changing from AVI to wmv I could greatly reduce the size.
Again depends on resolution and length, but even a couple min at 640x480 was under 10Mb
And 320x240 to 2-4Mb, such as http://wazza.nfscity.com/videos/flt.wmv

[johnkermit1]

cool. yep...that worked out well...it was like 163MB, now it is 21MB.
perfect!

ill have to try out the Quicktime software also...compare them..etc.

thanks again you guys!

[Tony-S]

cool. yep...that worked out well...it was like 163MB, now it is 21MB.

Try to use H.264 if possible. It gives the highest compression to video quality. It can be encoded for MPEG-4, AVI or MKV containers (and perhaps others), so depending on your target audience you'll want to choose the appropriate one.