how do I compress DV videos into good quality mpegs?

[bball_1523]

I have a panasonic MiniDV camcorder, and I use WinDV to upload the videos off the DV tapes through a firewire cable. Now after I am done uploading, I use Windows Movie Maker to convert the videos down to a reasonable size because the raw DV videos are often 100 MB+. Now WMM converts the videos through various options, but I don't know which options to choose to get a good quality video at a reasonable file size so I can upload to websites such as youtube. Often times I get pretty nasty quality from the compression through moviemaker for a reasonable file size , and I choose "best quality for playback..." option.

What options do I choose in windows movie maker to make my videos look good with a good file size? Or do you recommend another program for this, and if so, which ones that are free or very low cost?
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[kadzbiz]

I recently bought Ulead Video Studio 11 Plus which compresses files really well for uploading to youtube etc. It's not cheap, but it does a good job, but having said that, I'm having trouble using it to capture my analog movies. Still working it out with the techs.

I don't know how easy it is to find something cheap or free that does a great job. Talking about WinDV, I have found this to be the best analog capturing software for me, better than VirtualDub even which had some A/V sync problems.

[redwudz]

For uploading to YouTube, WMV is about as good as any format, if it's acceptable to them. Or you can install VirtualDub Mod and a DV codec like the Panasonic DV codec and convert to Xvid or other high compression formats. JMO, but I would skip WMM entirely, unless you are using it for editing.

Another alternative for DV>YouTube is SUPER. It has quite a few output options.

[bball_1523]

ok besides youtube, what if I want to compress for personal use and to share with friends over internet? Can I encode the videos down to a smaller fize size and still keep a good quality, using WMM?

WMM seems to make the videos look too grainy, and I'm not sure what option to choose to make the videos look better. Does this option exist on WMM?

Any other recommendations?

[redwudz]

I don't use WMM that much, but it has quite a few options for quality. But very small size and good quality don't usually go together. You can reduce framesize, reduce framerate, reduce audio quality and you may be able to keep some video quality and still have a small size.

You might look in our portable tool section: https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/portable-mobile-psp-ipod , to see what is used there for reducing size and still retaining quality.

[edDV]

WMV can be encoded from high quality to cell phone quality. I suggest you capture over IEEE -1394 to DV-AVI, then edit. Export ("save Movie Wizard") to the appropriate quality.

For export, DV-AVI is best quality (13GB/hr). WMV export can be set to various qualities and bit rates.

[EddyH]

What options do I choose in windows movie maker to make my videos look good with a good file size?

generally i'd say, "none of them". WMM is a very basic tool just chucked in as a nicety with the XP package, and to try and trick people into using WMV a heck of a lot more than they really need to (as that seems to be the ONLY format it will export to, and it's one that many programs have trouble reading)...

i'd definitely give something else a go, though i'm not even at the level of DV novice as i don't have a camera but there should be enough tools listed <---- over there to first slurp the dv data from the camera, then work on and convert/encode it in good quality and a widely compatible format... preferably all at once unless you have lots of free space, given how enormous the datastream tends to be... 11.25gb per hour (or was that 90?)!

edit:

13gb per hour

yeah, that's the one I could remember the video rate, but not if it was bits or bytes or what the audio rate was... almost 3x DVD's peak rate, anyway - huuuuge. Your typical WMM-WMV will knock this down very hard, probably make it a tenth the size in 'high' quality, more so for the moderate rates. Not exactly a professional tool

[edDV]

WMM can capture to DV-AVI. It can also export to DV-AVI. You don't have to use WMV but they make it difficult to find DV-AVI export (under "Other").

WMV is appropriate for video email attachments and other high compression requirements. Avoid it if DVD is the goal. If MPeg is your goal import your DVI-AVI file into a good MPeg2 encoder.
https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/video-encoders-mpg-dvd

[bball_1523]

well my goal is to reduce the grainy footage in the WMV files after exporting them in WMM. Is there anyway to do this?

Also what other cheap priced or preferrably free programs will allow me to do this, and convert to different file formats?

[edDV]

well my goal is to reduce the grainy footage in the WMV files after exporting them in WMM. Is there anyway to do this?

Also what other cheap priced or preferrably free programs will allow me to do this, and convert to different file formats?

Windows media encoder is free and offers many more optons for export. Just edit in WMM, export DV-AVI and import into the encoder.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx

Post a 2MB sample (a few frames) so we can see if yours is normal.

Many other encoder formats can be used but if you are going to email a file, wmv can be played by most without hassle.

[bball_1523]

http://members.cox.net/apbball23/gcedge.wmv

here's a sample I got through WMM. I think I used the default encoding "best quality for playback"

I guess it looks ok, what do you think?