converting/compressing video

[govtphish]

I am new to recording video on my digital camera and recorded some video last night..one is 577MB and over 5 mins long..Is there any way to compress or convert this to a smaller filesize and still have it play?

Thanks

[redwudz]

Yes. It's probably MJPEG format. Try using SUPER and convert it to a different format. But you didn't say what you want it to play on? Still, SUPER is a good start. Not the greatest encoder, but it should get your video to a more usable format.

What do you want to do with the video? DVD?

Any type compression, or just a re-encode to the same format, will lose you some quality. How much depends on the source video and the amount and type of compression you use.

And welcome to our forums.

[govtphish]

Thanks! .I will try that..I just wanted to play it on the cpu..but wanted to send it to a friend and wanted to see if I could make it smaller size.

[redwudz]

I am guessing you mean a digital still camera that also does video? That's why I mentioned MJPEG. You might tell us your camera brand and model.

There are other programs than SUPER that might do a better job, but you would have to do a bit of reading.

MJPEG video format often uses PCM or other audio formats that take up a fair amount of space.

If you want to send the video over the net, Xvid is a fairly compact codec and freeware, and use MP3 for the audio to reduce it's size. Alternatively Windows Media Player format can be fairly compact and play on most computers. If you have Windows Movie Maker, it may be able to read your file and convert it to WMV format.

Lots of options. If you want to find out what format you have to start with, try dropping the file into Gspot 2.70. It will tell you quite a bit about the video.

EDIT: And I might mention, if you want a handy player that will play about anything or any format, try VLC Media Player. It has lots of options and it's good to have in reserve for those 'odd' formats.

[thecoalman]

but wanted to send it to a friend and wanted to see if I could make it smaller size.

If by send it you mean e-mail forget it, you'll never get it small enough. Most servers will bounce emails with large attachements, usually after 2 or 3 MB..

Windows Movie Maker has a preset for "email" but it's still going to be too big.