Intro

Almost each person is making video recordings. For all of them, just to know; if your camcorder/camera is recording in AVI video format, it doesn't mean that it is the smallest possible document size. With better compression, XviD for example, you can reduce video size, sometimes over 10 times!

VirtualDub

Here I will talk about VirtualDub; the application that is free, without need to install, and works wanderfull. If you have problem to start VirtualDub, than look somewhere else :)

Here is the link for VirtualDub and downloading page:

http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/

When you start VirtualDub, you will get something like this:

Now you need to load movie you want to recompress: You go to File->Open Video File...

After loading you should see it loaded; something like this:

Now you have to set compression: you go to menu Video->Compression...

Now you should choose compression type. I preffer XviD.
NOTE: If you do not have XviD in the list, you should download XviD codec from ther sait

http://www.xvidmovies.com/codec/

After selection XviD, you can configure it by pressing Configure button.



You should click on the first button on the left to display "Target display". Now you can see compression quality, and also to set it. The best way to set it is with "calc ..." button.

Now you should set target size (good suggestion is CD size, 700 MB), and Video length (suggestion is 1:30 hours)

Now if you did this step you will have normal compression which should be good enough, and with that compression you can gain 10 times better size.

Now you need to close everything of open dialogs and start compressing movie.

Compression is started with "File->Save as AVI"

Now you should be able to make simple and basic conversion with your videos.

Cool features