Reducing video file size

[black5]

I am wondering whats the best way to encode my video to reduce file size. Right now, for a video that is 3 minutes and 22 seconds, the file size is 226MB. The resolution is 640x480p using xvid as the compression. I think this is a bit too big for my liking, so I would like to reduce the file size somehow. The quality doesn't need to be great since it is going to go on YouTube, but I would like to at least keep fairly decent quality at either 320p/480p with reduced file size. Any recommendations for codec or whatever I can use to reduce my file size?

Sorry if this is posted in the wrong section. I am actually a newbie at this video editing and encoding stuff... Post questions if you need additional information.

[aedipuss]

youtube prefers h264 encoded mpeg-4 video with aac or mp3 audio. try handbrake or mediacoder, but start with the source video not an already compressed xvid, as the quailty will take a large hit.

http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=132460

[black5]

Thank you for your reply, aedipuss.

It seems my original recording contained errors, so I actually have to use xvid encoding before I can use mediacoder to encode my video to a different format. Regardless of that minor set back, a few tweaking with the software allowed me to reduce my file size considerably! Thank you for your help.