Compressing vids

[heebeegeetee]

Hi all,

I've taken some vid clips with my Canon Ixus which I'd like to keep, but they're all of about 1 GB each. Is there an easy way of compressing them for storage? I've thought of winzip but I've never really got on with it and wondered if there was something simpler for a numpty like me.

Ta ever so.

[GreenV8S]

Windows Media Encoder (free from Microsoft) will compress them down to any size you like - you can take raw video down a long way before you start losing video quality.

[UncleDave]

Stick them in Windows Movie Maker (Free and included in XP)
Then just re-save them and you can select an approximate size that they will be saved as

[heebeegeetee]

My word, I had no idea it would be this simple. Any thoughts on what level of compression thats the best compromise re size and quality?

[GetCarter]

heebeegeetee said:

My word, I had no idea it would be this simple. Any thoughts on what level of compression thats the best compromise re size and quality?

Depends on the length of the vid and who your audience is (broadband?) - for general web use I stick to less than 6 mb. I usually go for 512 kps (vid for broadband setting). Sometimes I put a small file and big file up so people can choose according to how sad they are.

[heebeegeetee]

Ta.