How to make videos smaller
I have a problem with my videos.
They're too big. Around 6 ~ 7 GB size after I'm done with them.
After I try to upload them to YouTube, it literally takes about a full day to upload 1 video.
I tried zipping, but after 50% it crashed immediately, which wasted about 1 hour of my time waiting.
Tried again 4 times, still didn't work.
Is there any programs BESIDES Windows Movie Maker, which can make my videos smaller and NOT ruin my videos quality?
Thanks.
March 7, 2012
2 Comments • Newest first
[quote=feud999]Is there any programs BESIDES Windows Movie Maker, which can make my videos smaller and NOT ruin my videos quality?
Thanks.[/quote]
First, zipping (file compression) won't work on videos because the individual frames in the videos are already compressed, so you usually end up with a ZIP or RAR file that's about the same size as you started with.
Next, it sounds like you either used fraps to capture screen video from a game (like Maple), or used HD video from another source.
Fraps captures in a very low video compression mode to avoid lagging the game you're capturing. This works great for capturing, but results in a HUGE video file.
You can re-compress the file to a much smaller size by using a "codec" that will compress the video frames more without losing too much in quality.
(You can never compress a file without losing quality. That's why HD videos are far bigger than lower definition videos, and why BluRay videos are HUGE- they're compressed far less and shot at an extremely high definition to begin with. If you try to make the file smaller it WILL lose quality.)
And yes, the big question is what you plan to do with the final video file. YouTube has a page buried somewhere in their Help pages that suggests recommended video file formats to use when uploading to them, depending on the resolution of your original and how you want it displayed on the site.
For Maplestory videos (which are never more than 1024x768 resolution), it's best to compress and convert your files into MP4 format because that's the format YouTube will convert your uploads into anyway. When you upload your 6GB AVI format file to them, they will do an "on the fly" conversion as it's uploaded and convert it to MP4. That's part of why it takes so long to upload. You can save a LOT of time by compressing them yourself on your computer before you try uploading them.
For MP4, there's a free video conversion program called "Handbrake" that can be used.
Handbrake only converts to MP4, so I use a different free program called "Format Factory" which converts practically ANY format to ANY other format.
Not having used Handbrake I can only assume it has controls over the video quality and compression rate, but with Format Factory you can control how much compression is used which controls the final file size and the resulting video quality.
Google the program names for the download links.
How long, what resolution and what encoding format is your video? 6-7 GB sounds like there is no compression and its too big for most purpose. Usually you can use various free video converters to encode it into another more compressed format, but there is alway a trade-off in quality depending on the encoding.
* Hi Hi Ky Ky *