converting .rm real media files to .avi or .mpeg

[tilopa88]

I have a bunch of .rm files that I inherited and I need to convert them to .avi or .mpeg. But I've tried a couple of different software programs designed for this and the original real media files are about 100MB and after the conversion the files are around 200MB at lower quality. Is there any way to do this conversion where the files will remain about he same size and still have good quality?
Thanks.

[DKruskie]

You could try winavi and convert them to mpeg2, I've good luck with it for rm or rmvb. There are probably more tools out there, but it depends what type of media you want it on. For dvd convertxtodvd works well. EO video works well too to convert rm and rmvb.

[mgh]

if you want minimum loss of quality and same file size, mpg is not the solution as file size needed will be much bigger. x264 at its slower settings might serve your purpose.

[redwudz]

Is there any way to do this conversion where the files will remain about he same size and still have good quality?

No. All conversion cause quality loss and RM is a very highly compressed format, so for the files to be about the same quality, they will be much larger.

H.264 format, as mentioned, might come close, but it takes a long time to encode and you won't be able to play it back on much of anything except a computer. If you want a more common format, Xvid/Divx would be my choice, but with a larger file size to keep some quality.

I use the Any Video Converter Free Version for my occasional RM/RMVB conversions and it does a decent job and is easy enough to use.

[tilopa88]

Thanks very much to all of you for the helpful information and suggestions. I should have mentioned that my end goal is to be able to play these videos on my Cowon s9 device (which is like an ipod), so I do not need as large a picture. I will try and see if I can use H.264 for the conversion otherwise I will just have to use xvid and save as a .avi.

Thanks.

[usta]

Before doing the conversion, check the limitations of the device, especially the video resolution and video formats/codecs.
Agree that H264/AVC would give the comparable video size/quality of the original RMVB files. It wouldn't hurt to slightly increase the bitrate of the converted file.