Compressing and sharing an .avi file

[eager to learn]

Hi,

I have a 19,688 kb animated .avi file I wanted to share.

I need to compress it to share as imgur does not allow uploads of .avi files.

I then Googled “how to compress an .avi file” and found a Wiki result which instructed you how to compress using Windows Movie Maker 2.6.2

I have Windows 7 Pro My Movie – Movie Maker. Nowhere does it designate which version, it came pre-loaded with W7.

There does not seem to be a way to save the .avi file so it’s compressed in this My Movie – Movie Maker.

Could anyone pls share their favorite method of compressing an .avi file?

Is that compressing done with free software

Thank you so much.

[poisondeathray]

How about youtube or vimeo or dailymotion as other video sharing options ?

Or free file hosts to share the original AVI file ?

Or is there a specific reason you require imgur ?

[sneaker]

According to this you have 2 options:
- convert the video to gif and upload that or
- upload the video to a supported video sharing site (e.g. Youtube) and let imgur download/convert from that (or just stick to Youtube in the first place as suggested by poisondeathray)

[eager to learn]

I used ingur because several people shared it was a more trusted site.

I'm wary of YouTube and I'm not sure if vimeo or dailymotion are any more trustworthy? (e.g. collecting info re: posters, selling/sharing that info, other security issues?)

How have you and/or others converted an .avi file to .gif? Which software is most trustworthy to do that, free and easy to use?

Thank you both so very much.

[poisondeathray]

Are you sure you want GIF ?

There are severe limitations to the format, the quality is very poor - it only supports 256 colors, instead of 16million+ . Since it uses mostly intra frame coding (some transparency between frames can be shared) , the filesizes are very large for video, and the quality very poor . Most browsers are limited in the framerate for playback, for example 15 is typical, so playback can be not very smooth. GIF's are only suitable for low color, very short animations

You can use virtualdub to create a gif which is easy method, but few options to tweak the gif . FFMpeg can be used for higher quality GIF's and more options, but it's command line and difficult to use for many people. GIMP is also another popular method (it's like photoshop, but a free alternative).

[poisondeathray]

What is the background info, or how are you sharing this ? Do you plan to embed on some website for example ?

Because there are "video gif" alternatives that actually use webm (video, vp8, vp9) , for example giphy , gifv . The quality is much higher, filesize much smaller. (They are in reality, video). But not all websites support them for embedding. For example this one (videohelp) does not

[pandy]

File sharing services allow to share file directly without transcoding.

[eager to learn]

You people are so great!

Thank you so much for explaining re: GIF.

That doesn't sound like a good choice with the degradation of video quality

I'm trying to share an animated video to ascertain if Bender (the only free animation software I know of) could create that animation.

Are there free file sharing services which are trustworthy?

Thank you again.

[poisondeathray]

Is it the one you demonstrated before with the holiday/winter theme in the other thread ? If so, 100% definitely blender can do it

Just a warning - free file hosts usually have advertisements (that's why they are "free"), but you can usually block them in browser with adblock software. But some commonly used good ones are mediafire.com, zippyshare.com , mega.nz, dropbox.com . You can use your own google account storage to share too

[eager to learn]

Yes, that's the one.

I'm trying to learn Blender to create short animations like that (freely, for fun not a business) so I needed to share that .avi file for instructional help.

How do I use my own google account storage to share?

Thank you again for all your kind help and understanding.

[poisondeathray]

How do I use my own google account storage to share?

You upload your file(s) to share to your google drive . I think it's 15GB free storage, but you can upgrade to different plans.

When you sign in and go to your google drive, right click the file and select "get sharable link"

But some people don't like using google drive because of privacy concerns; or they only share links to trusted people like friends/relatives, not to wide open internet.

You can upload to a third party host like zippyshare even without an account or logging in (anonymously)

[pandy]

Comparison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_hosting_services

i use personally uloz.to https://ulozto.net/ - works for me.

[eager to learn]

Hi poisondeathray - thank for you kindly sharing your insights and zippyshare. You are spot on re: privacy. I have to use gmail for email but I'm not fond of Google's privacy concerns so I try to avoid Google products. Have you found zippyshare is better re: privacy?

Hi pandy - thank you so much for sharing the wiki and https://ulozto.net.

What do you like about that file sharing service? How's their privacy?

Again, thank you both and all who've kindly replied with such helpful info.

[poisondeathray]

Have you found zippyshare is better re: privacy?

You don't even have to log in or enter any personal information, or email . ie. Anonymous.

In theory they could have server log ip addresses stored (the ip where you uploaded from), but if you upload from some public computer they won't be able link it to you . I suppose if you logged into some public terminal using credentials, I suppose someone could eventually track it to you - but we're getting pretty far fetched here...you're just uploading a simple animation... I doubt anyone is going to go on a hunt

The two negatives about zippyshare are advertisements (that's why it's free, but they can be blocked by browser, or by downloaders like jdownloader) , and I think they only keep the link live 30 days from last activity unless you have an account

[pandy]

What do you like about that file sharing service? How's their privacy?

Privacy is outcome of your current privacy - file itself can be encrypted (i frequently use for this 7z archiver in null or fast mode - password is shared trough different channel).

[eager to learn]

Hi poisondeathray - I just uploaded the file. Very easy. Thank you so much!!

Hi pandy - thanks or sharing 7z archiver. I plan on trying that out! Thank you so much as well!