Advanced 'File Too Big' Questions

Tytbyts wrote on 5/13/2004, 7:06 PM
Hi All!

I have about 30 minutes of footage on my camcorder which, after capturing, editing and saving, is resulting in a HUGE .avi file. I read some of the older postings which suggest that saving the work as an .mpg file is a solution because it will be comparatively smaller (but still in gigabytes).

I wish to ask two questions. One, I saved it as a .mpg file but the quality is not as good as when I'd saved it as an .avi file -- so can something be done about this? Two, and more important, I have often seen 90 minutes plus Hollywood movies saved on one/two CDs -- as crystal clear .avi files and never bigger than 700 mb each! So why can't I do the same thing -- that is save camcorder movies of 60-90 minutes long on 1 CD that can be viewed over a computer (or maybe a DVD player?) ... and of the finest quality print?

Thanks for your interest!

Tytbyts

Comments

Former user wrote on 5/14/2004, 5:32 AM
Are you concerned about getting the best quality for computer viewing, or TV viewing? They are different beasts and require a different approach.

Dave T2
Steve Grisetti wrote on 5/14/2004, 7:20 AM
Also, you are actually asking many questions at once, so I've got a few for you:

1) Is your purpose in saving to your computer solely so you can output to CD or DVD? If you are planning to do any editing at all, you want to keep your files as NTSC-DV AVIs. And, yes, 30 minutes is several gigs of hard drive space. In fact, regardless of what you plan to do with your files ultimately, it's probably best to have your first generation of computer input an AVI. Fortunately, many gigs of hard drive space can now be bought relatively cheaply (and you do want a second drive, with only your AVIs on it, if you plan to do any serious editing and output).

2) Do you plan to output as a DVD or CD? Although most new DVD players will play CDs, there are a couple of formats that fit on them. The VCD format is a low-quality MPEG that is not even up to VHS standards and will probably disappoint you. The SVCD format is a higher-quality MPEG and, yes, MS3 will output files for either. See your options under MAKE MOVIE. DVDs use a high-quality MPEG-2, although there are many settings you can use to control how large your file is. The DVD authoring program that comes with MS3 has limited settings and, although it makes a good-looking MPEG-2, you likely can not fit more than an hour's worth of it on a DVD. Other postings on this forum discuss your options in greater detail.

3) Are you going to play your disk on a computer or a TV? DaveT2 is absolutely right -- they are very different media. To keep it brief, your TV is a fairly low-resolution display. You can make a high-quality file for TV at 720 x 480 pixels, but that same image would be half or less (depending on your display settings) of the resolution you're used to seeing on your computer monitor. Also, some highly-compressed files (WMVs and Quicktime for instance) look quite good on your computer but won't even play on your TV.

Regardless, assume you're going to need a lot of hard drive real estate to convert your half-hour video into a high-quality CD or DVD. I may well be wrong (and someone will correct me if I am) but, even if you're planning to go directly from your camcorder to producing an MPEG, it's best to bring your files in as an AVI and then convert them using a program like MS3 to convert them to the right MPEG-2 or whatever format before burning it onto your disk.

Or, if you just want to make DVDs of your tapes, you might want to look into one of those stand-alone VCR/DVD burners that are showing up at Best Buy and Circuit City. That way you avoid the whole input/output issue completely.

So there you go. Ask a simple question and get a very complicated answer.

Hope it helps!
IanG wrote on 5/14/2004, 10:05 AM
When you talk about "saving" do you mean you're saving the project, or are you rendering your project as an avi? If you're rendering, check that you're not using an uncompressed setting - that will produce huge files.

Ian G.
Tytbyts wrote on 5/17/2004, 11:11 AM
Thanks for your replies! And if I may clarify:

1) I have adequate space on my hard disk, where I saved the footage and edited it. But I don't want it to be sitting there forever ... so I want to save/store it to a CD that my family and I can view on a future date. This of course will free my hard disk space.

2) I would like to watch the CD over my computer, and NOT on a TV preferably.

3) Right now I have the footage saved as an avi file on my hard disk. It is of good quality, and I hope I will be able to transfer it to a CD while maintaining the same quality.

The huge avi file will probably not fit into a CD. So in what format do I transfer it? What are the steps I should follow?

Thanks once again!
Steve Grisetti wrote on 5/17/2004, 3:54 PM
If you're not going to do any more editing (If you were, you'd want to keep it an AVI for a variety of reasons) and you just want to be able to store it so you can watch it later, an MPEG-2 is probably your best route. You'll notice though that, when you select output to MPEG-2, you are given the option of several codecs.

Codecs are compressions. There are many and new ones being written every day, but you'll notice that MS3, assuming that you're interested in creating something to play in your DVD player, offers you several options, most of which will play on your computer or DVD player. Either the SVCD or the DVD options will work -- and you'll see the esimated size of the final piece.

If the end file is too large for your CD (which is about 700 MB), you might consider a WMV file instead. You'll see a variety of options that offer you a variety of file sizes. The trade-off is that some will give you a smaller screen size for your final piece or reduced quality of picture and/or sound. The 3mbps compression gives you virtually the same quality as an SVCD but at half the file size of a MPEG. These files, however, can be played on your computer but not your DVD player.

You can also poke around the settings for Quicktime and RealPlayer and and even MPEG-1 and experiment. It all depends on how much room you have for your files and how much quality you're willing to give up to make room.

Have fun!