What to do with large AVI video files taken on my digital camera?

[scormodo]

I have a Canon point and shoot camera which also takes video. I'd like to share alot of the videos with family members however, some of the video files are upwards of 120MB+.

I was wondering what you guys share these videos with family across the internet? Do you convert them? Upload them somewhere? (I would prefer to share these videos privately and not put them on the internet for the general public.)

TIA!

EDIT: the format of the files is AVI.

[MOVIEGEEK]

Most likely they are MP4 so download Quicktime to watch them on your PC, if you want to make a DVD(which I prefer) then use DVDFlick and ImgBurn.

[scormodo]

How silly of me not to tell you what format the files are in, they are in AVI format. Sorry about that.

[creamyhorror]

Upload and share them via, say, Mediafire. You can give the link to your family members.

Most likely they are MP4 so download Quicktime to watch them on your PC

If you want to play MP4 files on a PC, you can do a lot better than Quicktime. Get CCCP.

[MOVIEGEEK]

How silly of me not to tell you what format the files are in, they are in AVI format. Sorry about that.

I read that but I thought all still cameras used MP4 or AVCHD, use MediaInfo to make sure.
Whatever the format DVDFlick can convert it.
BTW:120MB is huge for streaming, you can reencode to a lowerbitrate/resolution to make the file smaller. It all comes down to what you want:quality or small file size.

[scormodo]

I ran MediaInfo on one of the files, here's the results:

• Format : AVI
  Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
  FileSize/String : 29.8 MiB
  Duration/String : 16s 567ms
  OverallBitRate/String : 15.1 Mbps
  Mastered_Date : SAT AUG 29 10:35:41 2009
  Encoded_Application : CanonMVI06
  
  Video
  ID/String : 0
  Format : M-JPEG
  CodecID : MJPG
  Duration/String : 16s 566ms
  BitRate/String : 15.0 Mbps
  Width/String : 640 pixels
  Height/String : 480 pixels
  DisplayAspectRatio/String : 4:3
  FrameRate/String : 30.000 fps
  Resolution/String : 24 bits
  ScanType/String : Progressive
  Bits-(Pixel*Frame) : 1.626
  StreamSize/String : 29.6 MiB (99%)
  
  Audio
  Format : PCM
  Format_Settings_Endianness : Little
  Format_Settings_Sign : Unsigned
  CodecID : 1
  CodecID/Hint : Microsoft
  Duration/String : 16s 567ms
  BitRate_Mode/String : Constant
  BitRate/String : 88.2 Kbps
  Channel(s)/String : 1 channel
  SamplingRate/String : 11.024 KHz
  Resolution/String : 8 bits
  StreamSize/String : 178 KiB (1%)
  Interleave_Duration/String : 975 ms (29.24 video frames)
  Interleave_Preload/String : 1000 ms

What do you guys convert your files to? How much will it shrink the file? How will the conversion effect the quality?

[MOVIEGEEK]

The video is only 16 seconds long?
Use WMM to convert to WMV, output to 640x480 and 1500kbps.

[creamyhorror]

Format : M-JPEG

What do you guys convert your files to? How much will it shrink the file? How will the conversion effect the quality?

MJPEG is extremely inefficient at compression, but converting it will reduce the quality further. If you're alright with uploading the current sizes, you could just do that.

If you have a lot of video to upload, you might consider doing a conversion to a more efficient format. It will cut the size to 10-30% of the original, depending on the codec and quality level you choose.

I recommend Xvid4PSP, which allows you to convert to a variety of formats. x264 is the most efficient, and XviD isn't a bad choice if you want to make playback easier.

edit: WMV is simple and playable on most computers, so I guess it isn't a bad choice either

[scormodo]

BTW:120MB is huge for streaming, you can reencode to a lowerbitrate/resolution to make the file smaller. It all comes down to what you want:quality or small file size.

What do you use to reencode?

Other than Mediafire, are there any other sites you recommend?

[creamyhorror]

What do you use to reencode?

The video is only 16 seconds long?
Use WMM to convert to WMV, output to 640x480 and 1500kbps.

edit: I guess you hadn't seen his reply yet