Shrinking file have to decrease quality?

[mkopper]

umm i recently tryed to go from DVD to avi
using the guide doom9 DVD to XviD w/ Gordian Knot.

When i get my finished product, the file is around 856megs

my question is if i decrease the file size to around 700, it seems like the quality is gonna be significantly worse.. basied on what I read in the guide.
Does this have to be the case, or can i decrease the size and keep the quality the same?

thank

[redwudz]

Anytime you reencode, reduce size, change format you will loose some quality. It's up to you to decide how much you can tolerate. Try a short sample and see what you can live with.

[Innershield]

Going from 856MB to 700MB should not significantly reduce the quality but you will have some quality loss. Most DivX files are right at 700MB and they are practically DVD quality.

[redwudz]

I have to admit that I recently downloaded some Xvid files and I was amazed at their quality vs size. Makes you wonder if this format will be used more for mainstream such as set top boxes. I plan to spend some time learning more about Xvid. For web use, it is miles ahead of Real Movie files.