size is huge

[upper]

after i capture the video i took, it's almost an hour long, and it's already 14gb, i'm doing this on my school's computer btw. what do i do to lower the size? i'm using adobe premiere pro cs4 and the camcorder is a sony dcr trv33 using firewire transfer. computer is window XP professional. from mini-dv.

[Shooter]

Dont worry about the size at the moment. (One hour of mini DV is about 13gb. and the size means quality)

Edit your film and then work out what it is to be used for...eg Broadcast, web view, DVD, email, Youtube, Flash etc....

You encode for that "end purpose" and you choose how large the file needs to be and compress it accordingly.

[upper]

how do i encode it for it to be smaller, my school got the media encoder cs4, should i try that? i want the whole video, uncut.

[Mike Harvey]

Anything you do is going to reduce the quality of the video. That said, if you encode it to a .WMV file, you should substantially reduce the size without affecting quality too badly.

Drag the clip into the timeline, choose File-->Export, then under format choose Windows Media, and under preset choose any of the presets that start with NTSC.

It will look worse than the original, but not objectionably worse.

[Huy Vu]

h264 is the standard, much better than wmv.

[Mike Harvey]

Yes, but h.264 may not be able to play back on all machines... at least, not without downloading additional software. at least 90% of the computers out there are going to play a .wmv file.

[Huy Vu]

Yes, but h.264 may not be able to play back on all machines... at least, not without downloading additional software. at least 90% of the computers out there are going to play a .wmv file.

Not if you're on a Mac. I don't know anyone who doesn't have Quicktime installed on their computer since so many software nowaday requires it and if you're viewing video online then certainly you'll have it. h.264 is also easily stream-able while you need to code wmv to do the same thing. I think wmv is an archaic format that'll eventually fade away. Quicktime is the future.

[upper]

okay, i just checked out my video today, and i think it's what you call, interlaced. there's horizontal lines going through the screen with 2 different image

[Mike Harvey]

Not if you're on a Mac...

Like I said... the 90% of computers that aren't Macs will be able to will be able to view a .wmv.

Also, just because everyone you know has Quicktime, doesn't mean everyone has Quicktime. Besides, to be honest, I've viewed a file in QT, then in Windows Media Player, and it looked better in WMP. I've never thought QT was all that great a media player.

H.264 is a superior format... but simply put, a lot more people are going to be able to view .wmv. Eventually, hopefully, it will be h.264. But not at this time.

[Shooter]

how do i encode it for it to be smaller, my school got the media encoder cs4, should i try that? i want the whole video, uncut.

You want the whole video uncut , just to view or maybe to edit it in the future. This is an important consideration because it is easy to compress the file to something a lot smaller but that may not be easily editable ,if thats what you intend.

You can have both if you archive the original on to a hard drive and do what you will with a compressed file. eg save on a CD or a DVD or a DVD data disk.

[Huy Vu]

but simply put, a lot more people are going to be able to view .wmv.

Makes no sense to me, I can't show that more people has QT but you can't show that more people has .wmv either. And Mac makes up a huge segment of the market, h.264 is a no-brainer if you want maximum compatibility. There's no easy way to download the wmv codec on to a Mac OS, but QT is compatible across both platforms and it's easily obtained and installed.

[Mike Harvey]

Makes no sense to me, I can't show that more people has QT but you can't show that more people has .wmv either. And Mac makes up a huge segment of the market, h.264 is a no-brainer if you want maximum compatibility. There's no easy way to download the wmv codec on to a Mac OS, but QT is compatible across both platforms and it's easily obtained and installed.

Apple has just under 8% market share. Windows has about 90% market share. Let me state that again. Windows has a 90% market share. EVERY Windows computer can play WMV files. It is the native codec for Windows (WMV stands for Windows Media-Video). Every Windows computer comes with it installed.

Thus, 90% of all computers can play .WMV.

Not every computer is going to have Quicktime installed. And in a school environment or corporate environment, not everyone is going to have administrative rights to install it. No one in their right mind is going to let any kid install any software on a school computer on a school network. For the folks who may have dial-up, they may not be able to download it. Not every one is going to be tech savvy. Not everyone wants to install 3-4 different media players.

Yes, h.264 is a vastly superior codec. I'm not arguing that with you. But the fact of the matter is it is far easier to use WMV than h.264, as 90% of the computers in the world don't come with h.264 installed.

I really don't want this to be a pissing match about Mac vs. Windows... but the overwhelming majority of the computers in the world are Windows. You Mac users are a very small minority. That's just the way it is.

[egproductions]

VLC can play wmvs on a mac and is free.

I have gotten very good quick and dirty results with wmv. I prefer FLVs for web though and try to only use wmvs if I need to give someone a managable file to re-compress (I hate doing it though but its a reality to some).

[egproductions]

Huy Vu, whenever I come across a post of yours you are always arguing a point! Your very knowledgable though so its ok :).

[ProfessorU]

If you want to keep the file for your own purposes, it's probably simpler just to print it to another tape, since it will last for years and you only need to spend $4.