MPEG-1 files: how to decrease size??

[s2001]

Dear All,

I have a lot of MPEG-1 files and would like to decrease size of collection...
Could you please recommend me best way - target format (WMV? MPEG2? XVID?) and software for batch encoding?

Thank you in advance,

Best wishes,
Sergey

[Cobra]

A search in the guides section yielded the following guides that will give you what you need:

https://www.videohelp.com/guides.php?formatconversionselect=VCD+to+DivX&search2=Search+

Those are my search results. See this post to learn how I got the search to be fast and accurate - this way of searching will definitely save you a lot of time:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=914071#914071

As for batch encoding, I don't think it's possible using these methods. Someone else may be able to tell you a way to do it, but from the guides on this site it looks like you will have to do each file individually.

Good luck,

Cobra

[s2001]

Thank you for your reply.

Could you please tell me, what is the best format/settings to store MPEG-1 files? Technically it's simple tasks, but I need to choose right format and settings to decrease size of 20Gb MPEG-1 collection...w/o quality loss, if possible

Thank you

Best wishes,
Sergey

[jimmalenko]

I would suggest using VirtualDub to encode to XVid. It has a batch processing function also.

[Cobra]

Thanks Jim, never knew that so that's one problem sorted.

I use DivX 5 for compressing my files. You won't get lossless encoding but it will still look pretty close to the original.

You will need to experiment with the settings in order to find out what you like best - I am a quality-conscious person so I tend to set a high bitrate of between 1200 and 1400kbps. Is your source VCD? If it is, you could probably get away with a smaller bitrate, especially if you resize the files to VCD resolution when encoding to DivX. This would be a real space-saver.

Basically, just play about and see what works best for you! Use a small section, one minute or so.

Good luck,

Cobra

[s2001]

Thank you, Guys! I will check XVID & DIVX codecs...

Best wishes,
Sergey

[SatStorm]

I second that. Xvid is a very good choice

[AlinaVastag84]

YES ! XVID IS THE BEST !
I had a lot of clips in MPEG1 and i`ve compressed them all in a very simple way with DOCTOR DIVX 1.04 combined with DIVX 5.11 PRO codec whitch was the best combination ...Use only "HIGH QUALITY" instead the default setting (THEATRE i think), set the sound to 128 Kb/s stereo, bitrate to >500kB/s for low quality , or >700kb/s for high quality, use only 2 steps coding, do not use redimensioning (do not change video size ,only cropping if necesary for black bars) and preprocesing only if necesary.
This way you can compress about 10 videoclips in 1 hour, good quality.
The best quality is with VIRTUALDUB combined with XVID 1.0 FINAL codec but you must be good to set them well...