How small should I make it?

AngelOfTheDark · Post by **AngelOfTheDark** » Sat May 12, 2007 10:55 pm

I'm finally (almost) ready to put up my AMV. Right now I'm in the middle of the compression phase. Or maybe the end. We'll see. So, after three days and using two computers to scour the guides and compress (two, because one has my AMV on it and the other, until minutes ago, was the only one in the house with internet access) I managed to get my 5 minute and 45 second long AMV into an 84.2 MB mpg-1 file. (That is after compressing the audio as well as the video, if you were wondering.) Is that small enough for the .org, or should I keep going? If I keep going how small (ball-park estimate) should it be and how do I go about making it smaller while losing as little quality as possible? Thanks for the advice, in advance!

Kariudo · Post by **Kariudo** » Sat May 12, 2007 11:09 pm

xvid is still pretty popular for video compression right now, and xvid +mp3 will probably be smaller (depending on how easy your video is to compress)

encoding with x.264 (using either the command line, or meGUI) and either mp3 or AAC will give you even better results. It is becoming more popular but isn't as widespread as mpeg1 or 2, or divx/xvid yet

AngelOfTheDark · Post by **AngelOfTheDark** » Sat May 12, 2007 11:19 pm

Wait, does that mean I have to start the compression process from the beginning again? -_-;; Is there anything I can do where I won't lose three days of work? Besides, my computer has yet to like xvid very much.

Kariudo · Post by **Kariudo** » Sat May 12, 2007 11:28 pm

if you want to retain respectable quality, then you'll have to re-encode your master.
...what the heck are you doing that's taking three days to encode? (computer specs please)

just in case, compressing using xvid
this thread explains a lot of the x.264 encoding paramaters (which are pretty much the same, or very easy to find in meGUI)

AngelOfTheDark · Post by **AngelOfTheDark** » Sun May 13, 2007 12:09 am

It took three days because I had to keep running back and forth from one computer to the other (each computer being desktops positioned at opposite sides of the house) to figure out how to do it, then to try to do it, then to realize I had to download something else onto my computer, so I had to set up the internet in my room which took a while. After I got internet access in here, I forgot where I was, so I had to go back maybe three steps and redo some encoding, and now, here I am. @_@

AngelOfTheDark · Post by **AngelOfTheDark** » Sun May 13, 2007 12:10 am

Oh, and I was using AbsoluteDestiny & ErMaC's Technical Guides to All Things Audio and Video mk2 to figure out how to compress it.

AngelOfTheDark · Post by **AngelOfTheDark** » Mon May 14, 2007 10:11 pm

Well, still, no one's told me how small I should aim for, for a 5 min and 45 sec video. It shouldn't take as long this time, anyway, now that I've begun to figure out the programs. Last week, I was going through guides, but I still had to do the trial-and-error thing.

P.S Has got acquainted with the girl, http://cyberblady.com, how it to you? Only it is fair!

Scintilla · Post by **Scintilla** » Mon May 14, 2007 10:25 pm

My personal guideline has always been about 10MB/minute, a target that should be even easier to reach while still maintaining respectable resolution and visual quality now with the advent of x264 and AAC.

Scintilla · Post by **Scintilla** » Mon May 14, 2007 10:28 pm

<b>Append:</b> But of course, that's a very general guideline; if your video has tons of fast motion going on, don't be too discouraged if you can't get it that small and still have it look good.

/me remembers when the mods actually used to append the contents of accidental double-posts sometimes.

AngelOfTheDark · Post by **AngelOfTheDark** » Fri May 18, 2007 2:35 am

Well, it seems I can only figure out how to get it down to about 78 MB. I think that'll do until I have more experience with the programs and can learn how to better manipulate them. It looks pretty good, especially considering I'm just learning how to use everything.

So, thank you, everyone who gave me advice. I really appreciate all the help. Hopefully, the video will be online by sun up. If your wondering, it's under the name "Poor Unfortunate Sen."