Pretty Simple Generic Newbie Q About Video Compression

[Emrys]

What's up everyone. I'm new to this whole movie burning thing so I'll tell you what I got so far. I've got some movies on my computer that I've downloaded, but I want to put them on CD. Making them playable on dvd isn't really all that important, I just need it to be able to play off of my computer. The problem is that they are sucking up some massive space so I've decided to send them to a Cds. MOst of the movies are in Divx format, but they are ~716 MB per movie. Does anyone know a program that I can use that will shave ~16 MB off of my movies by either cutting the quality a bit, splitting the movie, or dropping it to a more compressed format (although I thought Divx was the most efficient out there)? I appreciate any advice that you guys have. Thanks.

Emrys

[Tommyknocker]

Sometimes converting them to MPEG-1 will compress them even further. And in MPEG-1 you can also vary the bit rate to shrink it even further.

[gll99]

divx is more efficient the mpeg1. You will likely end up with 2 discs or lose a lot of quality.

716 may just fit on a closed cd. Some may suggest overburn but that could cause future problems.

Another way is open up virtualdub and choose start and end point then do a direct stream copy both video and audio. Only the range you have chosen will be copied to the out file. Good way to cut excess off. Vdub only cuts on keyframe so it can be off a bit. Very fast way.

My last option, direct stream the video but compress the audio (full process). If no synch problem then you don't lose a thing. A bit slower than 2 but still pretty good cause you only process audio and video goes out as is.