Is it suppposed to work this way?

[Des]

I'm playing around with converting video for use on my Ipaq. I converted a 9 minute or so mpg2 clip to divx first using a resolution of 320 x 240, which is the native screen size. The resulting file was 35 mb and looked great. Then I started thinking that I might be able to save space and CPU load by converting to a smaller size so I converted the same file to 176 x 144. This also looked good but not quite as good as the 320 x 240 file. What i don't understand, however, is that the resulting file size was still 35mb ('')
I didn't change any of the other settings. So is this normal? If so I'll keep the higher res.

--dES

[guns1inger]

"I didn't change any of the other settings"

You kept the same bitrate for the encode. File size is driven by bitrate, not resolution. You can have three files with different resolutions (VCD, Half-D1, D1 for example) and the same bitrate for each. Your file sizes will be roughly the same (give or take a little), but the quality will vary.

A ton of feathers weighs the same as a ton of bricks.

Try lowering the bitrate by 25% and see if it affects quality. If it doesn't, lower it again until you notice a difference, then stop.

[Des]

Thanks Gunslinger, it never occured to me to change the bitrate (and I should have known too).
I'll retry the file tonight and see what happens.

Cheers!

--dES