Shrinking a 4 gig video [Help]

[Nerwin]

Hey guys...

I got a 4 gig video that i made, and I want to put it on YouTube so people around the world can see it. But its 4 gigs and thats too big for YouTube so i need to make it smaller and get it on YouTube, I hope someone can help!

Thanks!!

Edited November 10, 2007 by computerMan

[DigeratiPrime]

There is only two ways to reduce the size of a movie file: cut the length and compression.

YouTube Video Toolbox:

http://www.google.com/support/youtube/?hl=en_US

YouTube Help Center

http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/....py?topic=10524

What video file formats can I upload?

YouTube accepts video files from most digital cameras, camcorders, and cell phones in the .WMV, .AVI, .MOV, and .MPG file formats.

We've found that files converted from .wmv to one of the other formats our webpage accepts generally have a lower playback quality than other file formats. If you have your source video in a format other than a .wmv file, I'd recommend encoding directly to MPEG4 (DivX, Xvid, SVQ3) at 320x240, with 64k Mono MP3 Audio. If you have a source .wmv in high bitrate and larger resolution I'd recommend converting to MPEG4 at full resolution and then resizing to 320x240 using a high quality resizing algorithm - this can help reduce the number of artifacts you end up with.

We recommend the following settings:

* MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format

* 320x240 resolution

* MP3 audio

* 30 frames per second

Resizing your video to these specifications before uploading will help your videos look better on YouTube.

So we just need software for the job now, can you supply more details about the 4GB video you have, such as the format, dimensions, etc?

[bledd]

how long is the video?

i'd use autogk to compress it as an xvid, give it say 10mb for each minute of video, then use some youtube video compressor to do the rest

[Camarade_Tux]

I'd play with ffmpeg:

ffmpeg.exe -i "original_file" -ar 22050 -ab 32 -cmp rd -subcmp rd -mbcmp rd -ildctcmp rd -precmp rd -mbd rd -skipcmp rd -qscale 15 -r 26 -f flv "output_file.flv"

Basically all flv encoders use ffmpeg. The difference is you will have more options when using it directly (for example the *cmp use more computing time but give better output).

This command-line is a bit old I think. I have a newer one but stored on another computer I can't acces right now. I'll post it tomorrow.

Moreover web-based encoders have an important load and therefore need to use "fast" settings generally making the picture worse than normal.

I think you can count on a 1/6 ratio depending of the quality of your source (for example, videos recorded with digital cameras at ski are usually very bad and badly compressed because of all the artifacts). (this is my personnal experience for some videos with my classmates)

Is your source file already compressed ?

Edited November 11, 2007 by Camarade_Tux

[Nerwin]

There is only two ways to reduce the size of a movie file: cut the length and compression.

YouTube Video Toolbox:

http://www.google.com/support/youtube/?hl=en_US

YouTube Help Center

http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/....py?topic=10524

What video file formats can I upload?

YouTube accepts video files from most digital cameras, camcorders, and cell phones in the .WMV, .AVI, .MOV, and .MPG file formats.

We've found that files converted from .wmv to one of the other formats our webpage accepts generally have a lower playback quality than other file formats. If you have your source video in a format other than a .wmv file, I'd recommend encoding directly to MPEG4 (DivX, Xvid, SVQ3) at 320x240, with 64k Mono MP3 Audio. If you have a source .wmv in high bitrate and larger resolution I'd recommend converting to MPEG4 at full resolution and then resizing to 320x240 using a high quality resizing algorithm - this can help reduce the number of artifacts you end up with.

We recommend the following settings:

* MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format

* 320x240 resolution

* MP3 audio

* 30 frames per second

Resizing your video to these specifications before uploading will help your videos look better on YouTube.

So we just need software for the job now, can you supply more details about the 4GB video you have, such as the format, dimensions, etc?

how long is the video?

i'd use autogk to compress it as an xvid, give it say 10mb for each minute of video, then use some youtube video compressor to do the rest

The video is WMV, Video file, or what ever, cause that what it says when i right click and go to properties and its about 15 minutes long

[bonestonne]

DivX has a file compressor...if you were using a mac that had the software, i'd recommend using Compressor. I've used it on videos i've made in Production class. a 5 minute video down to ~450mb encoded to HD.[something, can't remember what].

file compressors are hard to come by these days, surprising to me, seeing as videos are so large.

[Camarade_Tux]

Compress it directly to flv (flash video) yourself before uploading it. Trust me, you'll get better results, I've done it several times for videos with a crappy quality, always managing to get something both streamable and watchable while web-based converters gave unusable videos.

Get it there : http://esby.free.fr/CelticDruid/mirror/ffm...peg.rev10908.7z

And if you need an encoder, I'll code one for you in 35 seconds. Ok, not 35 seconds but 40. ;p

Edit : about the resolution, only divide it by an even integer : never ever use 1.2 or 1.5. If you want to reduce 1280x1024, choose between 640x512 or 320x256. Otherwise you'll get very bad results.

Edited November 11, 2007 by Camarade_Tux

[war59312]

The video is WMV, Video file, or what ever, cause that what it says when i right click and go to properties and its about 15 minutes long

Wow a 15min video which is 4GB. Shi* me! Even HD 1080p is not that big!

[slipk487]

my guess is it either uncompressed or a dv file. when i was ripping laserdiscs to video files for my school id end up with about a 6 gig file for 22 mins. but then i would compress the video down to around 350. i would suggust something like automkv or megui. go with xvid or x264.

[liquidguru]

What program did you make the video with? The easiest option is probably to re-export your video using better export options, i.e. smaller dimensions, better compression (there is usually an option to export to web, which will take care of everything for you)

[Camarade_Tux]

my guess is it either uncompressed or a dv file. when i was ripping laserdiscs to video files for my school id end up with about a 6 gig file for 22 mins. but then i would compress the video down to around 350. i would suggust something like automkv or megui. go with xvid or x264.

DV 720x480 (or so) takes 2GB per 10 minutes.