Compression Software
 

I made a video that ended up 3 minutes long and 1.05 GB, but I need to compress it to 100 MB for on-line video hosting. I went to the Sony help chat and both people told me that the software can magically convert 1.05 GB into 700MB for CD-R if I don't download it to the computer, but for some reason they want me to look for third-party software in order to compress the video for on-line viewing. Does anyone know of any compression software that doesn't cost an arm and a leg (not over $50 since I am a college student) or of free compression software?

I greatly appreciate any and all help you can give me. You are the closest thing to experts that I can find when it comes to video and compression software.

SUPER is the daddy of video / audio encoding / re-encoding software. It comes with pretty much every codec built in, even ones such as h.264 / Theora.

Best of all, it's free :)

So it's able to convert a 1.05 GB .avi to a 100 MB .avi? If so, any idea how that works?

If you AVI is 3 minutes long and a whopping 1Gb, you definately won't have much trouble getting it under 100Mb.

http://img377.imageshack.us/img377/4034/46nf1.jpg

Should be pretty much fine, depending on the resolution of your video.

I have to ask, what kind of hosting are you doing? If you are hosting it on a personal website for very limited number of people, then SUPER would probably work fine.

If you are hosting it on a public website, it is very important that you make the file in either Quicktime compatability or with WMV (or flash), because these are the common video formats. If you you want to make a QT file, try handbrake . If you want WMV, then download Windows Media Encoder 9.

I recommend QT over WMV, because superior compression is possible. H.264 all the way!!!

I recommend using x264 as video codec (newest revision) and ogg or aac as audio codec. Container should be something like mp4 or even matroska.
x264 provides MeGUI to convert to h264 using avisynth scripts and aac-encoding is easily possible if you're using foobar and have nero installed (foobar can access the aac encoding engine of nero). mp4 muxing can be done using Yamb.
IIRC if you're using a not too high profile for h264 encoding the resulting mp4 should be playable on the normal qt player (which sucks in my opinion, at least concerning h264 decoding).

Right I have done this. However, all this requires an extensive amount of setup/work. I luv MeGUI, but am recently stuck with a Mac :(. I tried handbrake and am very impressed by its easy of use, fairly high quality h.264 and aac output, and it's compatibilty with quicktime.

Well, I don't think it really an extensive amount. You can create the AviSynth Script in a few seconds yourself or use AutoGK/GordianKnot - and that the biggest part you're doing yourself. Converting the sound to AAC are like a bit more than 3 clicks or so. You're probably waiting most of the time for the x264 codec to finish the video part. And muxing: select audio, select video, mux and again wait for the end product.

cya
liquid

I'm hosting it on photobucket or YouTube. Thanks for the help so far everyone :).