Why is my edited video file bigger than the original?

[baebbe]

I have a 103 MB video (avi) file that I recorded with my digital camera. I wanted to cut off certain frames in the beginning and end and in my infinite simplemindedness :P figured that would also make the file smaller, since I need it to be no bigger than 100 mb.
I got virtualdub, deleted the frames I wanted and tried to "save as avi". But the new file is waaaay bigger than the original.
What can I do? Is there another way to make this file smaller? I'm a total newbie, and not sure what other information you might need to help me, I'm sorry.
Please let me know what else you need to know, or if it can even be done?
Thank you very much in advance

[45tripp]

enable direct stream copy for video

[baebbe]

OMG, thank you! What a simple solution.... thanks a lot!

[SCDVD]

When you do a direct stream copy, you insure that you don't degrade the video quality by encoding it. If you encode unnecessarily, the video quality is reduced.

[baebbe]

ok, thank you... I will definitely try to remember that. I'm totally new to any of this, so any help is appreaciated

[redwudz]

It sounds like you solved your problem. But just for reference, if you don't select a output codec in VD and you use Full Processing Mode, it will default to uncompressed RGB video, which will give you a huge filesize.

If your input was DV, you can also use filtering or modify the image, then use Full Processing and add a DV codec like the Cedocida DV Codec to encode back to the DV format.

But if you are just doing cuts and pastes, Direct Stream Copy is all you need. Another nice feature of VD is you can modify the DV file and output it by frameserving directly to a MPEG encoder. Handy for DVD conversions as you avoid creating an edited file to take up space on your hard drive.

And welcome to our forums.

EDIT: I assumed a DV camcorder, but you actually posted 'digital camera'. Those use a different codec, sometimes MJPEG. But the principle is still the same. If you work with AVI, it's well worth learning how to use VirtualDub.

[baebbe]

Thanks for your welcome and wow, ok. That sounded very technical to me, lol.

"If your input was DV"...
What exactly does that mean? DV?

I think I will mostly just do what I did this time, like take a few seconds off the beginning and the end of a video, but who knows? I might end up doing something different sometime, too So thanks again for all your guys' help

[zoobie]

you need to spend the time and read the glossary of terms up there on the left menu
doing so will probably save you countless hours of frustration...unless that's the goal

[baebbe]

lol sure! I love frustration, who doesn't?? thanks again for all your prompt and friendly help!