How to email video without losing clarity

[Tiger2]

I have a Panasonic sd camcorder uses the mini tapes. I record my kids wrestling matches. I plug it into my computer using fire wire, and then use Nero Ultra 7 to transfer / record the video to my computer. To this point everything if fine. I then use Windows Movie Maker to send the video in an email. My older son lives out of sate and loves to watch his little brothers match. The problem is when I do this the video gets very blurry. Normally reduces it from 78mb to 10mb so it will go in an email. 10 mb is the max if you go lower it gets worse. I’ve checked all the settings in Movie Maker and see nothing wrong. Is there a better way to do this without losing video clarity?
Any help would be appreciated

[Baldrick]

What video resolution are you using? Try use same as the your source. And you can try convert to wmv with windows media encoder instead, easier to adjust custom settings.


Or maybe instead of emailing files you can upload your video to a video site like www.vimeo.com , youtube , etc (and make the video private).

[Soopafresh]

Just get a free http://Vimeo.com account. You can upload 500MB per week. You can also mark the video as private, so your son can enter a password to see the footage. No need to send him the video via e-mail, you just include the link to the Vimeo created video.

BTW, what model video camera do you have? The only trick is to provide Vimeo with deinterlaced/progressive footage.

Quality is pretty good

[Tiger2]

The camera is a Panasonic PV-GSS59 and I made an error in the earlier post. The videos are like 1.5 GB not mb. Too big for the web site you suggested.

[guns1inger]

You want to take a 1.5 GB movie, reduce it to 10 MB, and not lose clarity ? It is like saying you want to take your sedan, turn it into a matchbox car, and still be able to take the family on a drive. Unlikely, to say the least.

You can minimise the problem, but there will always be compromises. You may have to chose a much lower resolution, use H264 for compression, and probably ditch movie maker for at least the final compression.

I would capture, edit and output from Movie Maker is DV AVI, so you lose very little quality. Note; If you use XP's movie maker and apply any type of filter at all, you will force a resize to 640 x 480 and back again. This happens internally, but can cost some clarity. If you just make cuts then it is not a problem. Output DV AVI, then use something like Xvid4PSP to resize, deinterlace and compress using H264 for output. This will give you the best compression/quality solution. Experiement with different resolutions and compressions until you find the combination that works for you. This will certainly get you something appropriate for Vimeo or Youtube, if not emailing

[Soopafresh]

You just need to convert the footage

You can use an automated app to do this - WinFF should work.

Choose these settings. I was able to get a 100MB AVI down to 4MB using this.

[poisondeathray]

Since you were thinking of emailing, another option is to use a free hosting site e.g. mediafire.com , sendspace.com etc.... So this bypasses the 10MB email limit. I think the limit is 200MB for mediafire. You can make folders private as well

What's the benefit? Vimeo/youtube/blip.tv etc.. will re-encode your video, so you have an extra generation loss of quality. The hosting site will have the exact same video you uploaded vs. a lower quality re-encoded version

[txporter]

Another thing to consider is purchasing a $99 Tonidoplug computer and adding a $100-$150 1-1.5tb hard drive to it. You can easily set up a folder to share files with your son. Just drop the movies on there (no need for conversion if he has a decent download speed and is willing to download the videos over a few hours) and send him a Webshare pro link to the files. I use mine for "taking" videos with me on the road.

You could, of course, still convert the videos to something a little smaller with little quality loss but avoid the 10mb limit of email.

[Tiger2]

Thank you all for the help

[leghorn]

As others already proposed, convert your footage using x264. Then upload the file to a one-click-hoster (eg. Megaupload, Rapidshare, Depositfiles) and simply send the download link to your son. That way you avoid the limitation some mailboxes have concerning space.