Best way to Shrink 3GB mpeg2 file

[linfor]

I have several tv episodes that I captured and they are 3gb each and truly excellent quality. I would like to shrink them as small as possible and keep good quality so I can send to a friend via email or upload.
I tried autogk and simpledivx and ended up with only audio or with a video of less than 5 minutes. I tried converting them to windows movie but it would only do 4 minutes.
What is the best program to use, keep the good quality and get the smallest file like 150mb or less?

[yoda313]

Hi,



You should probably reencode them from the original source at a lower bitrate. If you try to squeeze them a lot you'll get horrible quality. Going from 3gb to 150mb is a HUGE shrinking job.

Kevin

EDIT - I don't think this kind of "sharing" is acceptable at this website fyi

[linfor]

I reencoded at lower bitrates and the quality was poor so I am looking for a way to get better quality.

What kind of sharing? If you mean the episodes they are televised lessons from my college and we are allowed to copy the tapes and share as some students take the class via online and cannot get to see the lessons.

[yoda313]

Hi,

Oh thats different.

Um if size is so important you could just rip the audio off and email the mp3. If there are important visual aids make small clips and email those seperately - or make jpg stills of them and include them in the email.

kevin

[jimmalenko]

Nevermind the green goon



You don't mention exactly what settings you captured to (Video/audio bitrate, resolution, audio type, running time, etc) so it's sorta hard to give you any solid recommendations without knowing these basics.

I can tell you now that emailing one or more 150MB files is absolutely out of the question, unless you have a very stupid admin looking after your mail server

Can you load one of your MPEG-2 files into GSpot 2.52 Beta and upload it here ? At least then I'll have some figures to work on