How do I shrink home videos down for e-mail?

[xoan]

We just got a mini DV camcorder. I've figured out how to get the video on my computer and edit clips, but I still end up with files way to big for e-mail. If someone could suggest a couple of programs for shrinking video clips to e-mail size that would be great. Thanks...

[hech54]

E-mail size with quality?
Not much of a choice really. Your best bet is to create a YouTube account and upload them.....then send the links to your relatives to watch at their leisure.
They won't be stellar quality but it is great for family members who no nothing about codecs that they need to install to watch DivX/Xvid stuff.

[redwudz]

Since you probably already have it on your computer, you might try WMV format with Windows Movie Maker. Most other Windows computers should be able to play it back. One problem you may run into is how big of files the Email servers will accept. I tried to send a 30MB file and my server rejected it. It also took about 45minutes of uploading it before it rejected it.

You might check with your ISP and see if a website or webspace is included with your account. My ISP gives me up to six email accounts with a 250MB website for each. Then you FTP your video up to that and email the site address to the people you want to share the video with. Much better than trying to email a large file.

[xoan]

It doesn't need to be great quality. I'd just like to create short little movies like the ones I seem to get in my e-mail all the time. I do have Windows movie maker, which I will now try. I also have Roxio 8, and Ulead video studio 9, but haven't yet figured out how do do it wither either of those.

[thecoalman]

WMM has an option for for setting the file size... Realistically though any video with any amount of length is still going to be big no matter what you do. If you use windows Media Encoder it will allow you more options such as setting a ridiculously low bitrate and framerate. Lowering the bitrate will make the file size smaller and reducing the framerate will give you better image quality at the expense of it being choppy. Try about 10FPS.

[hech54]

My trick:
Load the footage in VirtualDub, edit, then use 2:1 reduction filter(high quality).....then even use the resizer filter afterwards if necessary(320 x 240)....output as an uncompressed .avi file.
Then encode the 320 x 240 sized file. My normal encoding is done with FLV Encoder and uploaded to YouTube but you may want to try Windows Media Encoder since it can be opened by almost anyone....or even MPEG1 or 2.

[thecoalman]

Here's a guide to creating a slideshow, the same pricipals apply for moving video but you won't be able to use the ridiculously low bitrates I'm using here nor will you be able to use the "same as input" option for the video, you'll need to lower the resolution:

Open Windows Movie maker, you should have this installed if you have Windows. If you don't you can download it from M$'s site for free. On the right click "import pictures" find the image you want and import it which will place a thumbnail of the image in the gallery. Repeat for the tune you want... Repeat if you want to add multiple images.

Note: to set the default duration an image is displayed select tools>options>advanced>picture duration. In my example at the bottom I used a default of 20 seconds.

Drag your image(s) to the storyboard on the bottom of Movie Maker, add transitions if you want by dragging them between the clips. Click the link that says show timeline. Drag your audio file to the audio track. If you have only added one image or highlight the image thumbnail by clicking it, there will be a handle that you can grad on the right side of the image thumbnail. Drag it to the length of your audio track.

Click the button that says "send in e-mail", and follow the prompts. You will probably get a warning that the file is really big which it will be since it's video. you can ignore this but I would suggest not sending these files to anyone on dial-up unless they are willing...

Note that video the resolution will be very small and the audio will not be very high quality. This is necessary so the file is not huge, there's no presets that I an find for doing something of this nature with Movie Maker.

However....

Note: if you want to use this method do not add transitions between the clips when creating your file in Movie Maker.

Download MS Media Encoder.

Install and run it The first page is a wizard, select convert a file. Next page select the file you created in Movie Maker and select a destination for the file your about to create. Click next. Where it asks for Content Distribution on the second wizard page select file archive then click finish, you do not have to select next.

On top click properties, then click the compression tab in the dialog box that opens. Then click the edit button to which will open another dialog box to create a custom profile. In this dialog box click the new button.

Type a name for your new custom profile. Click the add button which will ask you for a target bitrate, put 60k but this doesn't really matter. Click OK which will bring us to the meat and potatoes.

Under audio format from the drop down select 22kbps,44khz,mono. This is a suggestion, you can try different ones. Higher bitrates will give you better quality for the audio but at a higher file size. Vice versa for lower bitrates... the one I'm recommending works well. The audio portion of this file actually will make up the majority of the filesize.

Use the following attributes for the rest...

Video Size: check the box same as input
Frame Rate: 1
Key Frames: 100
Video Bitrate: 4k (huh? 4k...you're kidding right... )
Buffer Size: 20 (if your video comes out blank increase this by 1 or 2.)
Video Smoothness: 100

Click OK which will close the dialog box, then click the apply button on the properties dialog box. Under the details your settings should look like this. Click start encoding to create your file.


Example properties of final file:

Audio encoding mode: CBR
Video encoding mode: CBR

Audience: 28.01 Kbps
Audio codec: Windows Media Audio 9.1
Audio format: 20 kbps, 44 kHz, mono CBR
Video codec: Windows Media Video 9
Video bit rate: 4 Kbps
Video size: Same as video input
Frame rate: 1 fps
Key frame: 100 s
Image quality: 100
Buffer size: 20 s



Final specs:


Quote:
Session:
Bytes encoded (total): 619.37 KB
Bit rate (expected): 24.01 Kbps
Bit rate (average): 23.5 Kbps

Video [4.0 Kbps]:
Bytes encoded (total): 97.75 KB
Bit rate (expected): 4 Kbps
Bit rate (average): 3.49 Kbps
Frames per second (expected): 1.00
Frames per second (average): 0.45
Frames (total): 94
Frames (dropped): 121
Profile conformance: MP@ML

Audio [20.0 Kbps]:
Bytes encoded (total): 521.62 KB
Bit rate (expected): 20.01 Kbps
Bit rate (average): 20.01 Kbps
Samples (total): 657
Samples (dropped): 0
Profile conformance: L2




As noted above in this case it's the audio that takes up most of the filesize, I find it hard to go any lower though... You can if you want increase the quality of the images by increasing the bitrate but that will also increase the file size as well.

The file :

www.40lbhead.com/misc/slideshow.wmv

Note: due to the limitations of the output selections on Windows Movie Maker I'd suggest using a better editor and output a uncompressed AVI to use as your source file. I haven't tested it but I have no doubt you'll get better results.


And that folks is how you make a slideshow for e-mailing....

[rvelez]

You might want to try some of the instant messenger services. Example: Yahoo Messenger lets you send files up to 1gb.