Converting 700 MB AVI files into less than 200 MB files

[farmboy527]

Okay I want to back up all my movies on my hard drive to CD-R's, something goes wrong and i lose them all and have to download them agian so Id like to convert them into small files so i can fit 4 or 5 on a cd-r and not use a whole cd-r for one movie. And i want it to be the same quality. So how would i convert a 700 MB AVI file into a file less than 200 MB with the exact same quality and then i will burn it to a cd-r as a data file. Please help

[FOO]

Pray lots.

There is a new extremely effective compression out. It
has the DELETE hotkey assigned to it. It makes files VERY small.



Ok that's it. I can't take it anymore. I'm gonna crash.

[Roundabout]

AFAIK, not possible to shrink to that size without losing an extreme amount of quality. Why do you think they are that size anyway? It's because 700mb just happens to fit on one CD-R...imagine that. Why would you worry about the cost of CD-R's anyway? In a lot of cases, you can get 100 packs of them free after rebates...or if you buy them outright, not pay more than 20 - 25 cents each!

[thayne]

So how would i convert a 700 MB AVI file into a file less than 200 MB with the exact same quality

It's simple... You can't...

[Ejoc]

Why would the file be 700MB if it could be 200MB at the exact same quality? What you could do is Pkzip it like 10-15times, I bet that would do it, give it a shot.

[gll99]

Ejoc

Why would the file be 700MB if it could be 200MB at the exact same quality? What you could do is Pkzip it like 10-15times, I bet that would do it, give it a shot.

Hope your kidding and he knows it cause that may give 1% to 3% and only because of some text and blank content in the information areas. The avi container is already fully packed so there is very little room for saving space.

farmboy527
Some codecs like wmv9 or rm9 may (and I stress may) produce a smaller file by lowering the bitrate but not as much as you requested. One other option is to use 1/2 framerate like 12 to 15 fps (or some other suitable rate). Remember for avi you don't have to stick with 23.976 or 29.97 or 25 (for pal). If 21 fps looks good to you then go with that. The lower framerate will produce correspondingly smaller files. If you go too low, the video movement may be a slightly unnatural but still watchable. Conversion after the fact may create audio/video synch problems. You could also check the audio to make sure that it's using a good compression scheme (like mp3) and also a lower audio bitrate. Use gspot to see what codecs are in use.