is there a way to make a video file smaller?

[BAD-ASS-CJ]

I have this cool video that i want to upload to my site and let people see it but its like 500MB. Is there a way to make it smaller?

[B&T]

You did not tell us the format of the file . . . so we can not answer the question. For example, if it is an avi file it is very bloated. If it is already an mpeg file - not much you can do. But compressing from 500mb to something reasonable is not likely.

[BAD-ASS-CJ]

Sorry, its an mpeg. Ya i didnt think there was anything i could do, thanks anyway.

i would chop up the video into 4-5 files. then compress each one using a good video compressor.

[BAD-ASS-CJ]

What program would "chop" it up and what program would you recomend to compress it?

i don't know of any free apps. that will do it.
but Adobe Premier could chop it up and compress it for ya.

i have been using the Sorenson Squeeze for my video compression latley.

there might be some good video editing apps. that you can download for free. i think you might be able to get a free trial download of Adobe Premier.

riverpast had some video software he is pushing in the Website Critique Area. i haven't had a chance to try his stuff out yet, but he did have a trial verison available on his site. he might be able to help you out with this as well.

here is the thread he posted:

http://forum.powweb.com/showthread.p...threadid=22249

[BAD-ASS-CJ]

I love the internet! Am downloading a full version of adobe premier now,(free) will let you know if it works for me.

I had the same issue a little while ago with a client's video. It was an mpeg files as well not quite as large your though. I started with a file at around 9MB. I imported it into Windows Movie Maker once I had the file loaded I went to "save movie file", this will save the file in WMP format. You have several options to save in depeding on what quality you want to display.
I finished with aprox 700kb file. Pretty good compared to the original 9MB.

Keep in mind when you want to display movie clips online you want to keep them small (which you already know) but in return your quality will be reduced. Keep in mind as well that the larger the file size the more bandwidth it will be using when your viewers view those movie clips. I would suggest going into Windows Movie Maker and cutting out some unimportant parts.

I hope this helped.

ciao

youn can use just about any Video editing program to compress any file type or size to whatever you want.

Obviously the longer it is the bigger the file no matter how much you compress it. Also more compression =less quality.

Usually, you can take Raw AVI footage and make a 3 minute clip be about 3-5 MB with Plenty good quality for web use.

Adobe Premier is good, but I like the Ulead Products better. More Options and easier to get used to.

Premiere is awesome if you use it all the time and figure out all the things it does, its just a longer learning curve.

I dont mess with it enough and I can get things done with Uleads products quicker.

Oh yah Windows XP movie maker is pretty decent for home users and very good if you have some previous experience with movies. And its Free with XP.

Its limited in some options though, but like I said, its more than enough for most peeps

[paulselhi]

using the divx codec i can generally get 200+ MB full uncompressed files down to about 500KB or less

divx is very good but does mean you have to get the end user to download the free codec or at least give it to them !! ( www.divx.com)

[allenrichard]

I have this cool video that i want to upload to my site and let people see it but its like 500MB. Is there a way to make it smaller?

You wanted to know how to make a video smaller. I did extensive research and with the help of many others, solved that problem. Since your video is in the MPEG-1 format, you are in luck. Here is what you need to do.
1. Open MOVIEMAKER>FILE>IMPORT. Locate your original MPEG on your hard drive.
2. CLICK OPEN.
3. It will open the MPEG into the COLLECTIONS, but it will chop it up into several individual frames. NO PROBLEM.
4. SELECT ALL.
5. COPY.
6. PASTE. You paste the entire chopped up clips into the timeline directly below the collections.
7. Count the individual clips in the collections and make sure they all appear in the timeline. If your MPEG is 500MB, you might end up with over 250 chopped clips. If you can't copy all 250 chopped clips at once, then copy 50 at one time. I did and it was no problem. I took 25 MB of MPEG and converted it to 600KB WMV.
8. CLICK FILE>SAVE MOVIE.
9. The save movie dialog box has a drop down menu.
10. Arrow down until you see SETTINGS.
11. CHOOSE "OTHER."
12. USE DROP DOWN MENU FOR PROFILE>CHOOSE "VIDEO FOR BROADBAND NTSC 384KBS.
13. CLICK OKAY.
14. SAVE MOVIE AND GIVE IT A NAME.
It will save as a WMV file.
The quality will be the same. You can check out www.spindelsportsacademy.com/videoclips.htm and see what the result is.
Good luck and thank all the other members for helping me some time ago. They were really great.
Allen

[Ironcleaver]

Originally posted by BAD-***-CJ
I have this cool video that i want to upload to my site and let people see it but its like 500MB. Is there a way to make it smaller?

Terran Media Cleaner, it's designed and built for one thing, and one thing only, video compression.. This is the holy gail in which you seek..