Digital video compression?

[Drizzid]

Hey guys I need your help again. My wife and I just recently changed digital cameras and we are having some issues with e-mailing the video files. Our old camera could take a 15 second clip and we could email it without compressing it or zipping it. But with this new camera the files are much larger and she can't email them. She has said that she has tried to zip the files using winzip and she still can't send them via email. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions for this problem we are encountering? Should I try some other type of compression and if so do you have any suggestions on software we could use to send these files to friends and family. Thanks in advance

[icky]

It sounds like the quality is just higher, and therefore the videos are larger. Do you know what format is being used to store them? What is the extension on the files?

You will not have any luck with file compression on any modern format since they will already be compressed. They only way to get smaller files is to
a) record in a lower quality format
b) re-encode (transcode) the file using a codec with better compression and/or sacrifice some resolution

I am guessing from the wording of your post that b would be too much of a pain in the butt. Check the camera settings and see if you can turn down the resolution for videos.

[Drizzid]

The videos are saved initially as an mpeg format. Is there any other way to send the files without changing the quality. If we lower the quality then the movies get really small and loose alot of detail. Thanks for the help

[RocketPunch]

http://rapidshare.de/

[PanzerHans]

I've seen many cameras use mjpeg(still says mpeg on the file)which gives you quite big files. If the camera uses this format you should recode the movie using a better compression format. If you post your model type and number we should be able to figure out what compression you have.

[Lorian]

AutoGK is a good program for compressing videos. In the unlikely event you like command line software, mencoder the the best avaliable.

[Drizzid]

Originally Posted by PanzerHans

I've seen many cameras use mjpeg(still says mpeg on the file)which gives you quite big files. If the camera uses this format you should recode the movie using a better compression format. If you post your model type and number we should be able to figure out what compression you have.

It's a Sony Cybershot DSC-H1 is the model. Not the fanciest of cameras but we were on a budget. Thanks for the help

[PanzerHans]

Is it this one? http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/mod...dl=DSCH1&LOC=3

If it is it is supposed to have a video mail mode which produces smaller files for emailing and such.

I've not been able to find any specs about the compression type used. But I would guess we are talking about MJPEG as this format doesen't require a lot of processing in order to create. Give AutoGK or http://flaskmpeg.sourceforge.net/ or whichever flavor of recompression program you like a try and it will probably help.

[Drizzid]

yes that's the one, I will give one of tose programs a try thanks for the help PanzerHans

[WhiskeySix]

hey drizz - we have the same camera!!

What I do is fire up Windows Movie Maker (comes with windows I think?). Anyway, you just drag-n-drop your mpeg clips in there. You can shorten them or edit them if you want. Finally, when you Save-As or whatever, you can pick the size and quality of the .WMV it creates.... that should work for ya!