OK guys, i’ve done a little video of my good self uniing a bit, but its quite big even in its reduced quality form eg 25mb. I’d like to be able to upload both a low and higher quality one to the gallery, but its gonna take ages unless i compress it. Am i right in thinking that i need to use something like DivX? I’ve downloaded the program but can’t get it to compress stuff cos i don’t understand computers much really…,.,… Any help anyone?
If you’ve downloaded DivX from www.divx.com then you’ve got the codec to watch and make the videos, but not a program to actually use it. Think of a codec as a little module that programs use to read and write videos.
The program I use to do this is VirtualDub, from www.virtualdub.org. Download the zip file, extract it somewhere and run the program; there’s no installer, just plonk it anywhere.
In the program choose File->Open Video File… and load your video. If you click the play around in the bottom left (there are two; at the mo it doesn’t matter which) you should see your video play. You need to press stop before you can do anything else.
In the “video” menu click “compression…” and a list of different codecs you can use will appear; if DivX is installed correctly it’ll be in the list somewhere, probably as “DivX 5.0.2 Codec” or something similar. Select it, then click “configure”.
In the middle of the window that pops up there’s a slider called “Encoding Bitrate”. The further to the right, the larger the file, but the higher the quality. It does give you a number, but the best way is to keep trying until you get close to the file size you’re after.
Click “ok” twice to get back to the main screen, then click “File->Save as AVI…” . It’ll ask you what you want to call it, so give it a name, click “Save” and let it fly. Et voila! Your video is compressed in DivX.
Any questions, just ask… 
Phil, just me
OK, i guess i’m real bad on PC’s then, Oh well. I tried to open my video in Virtualdub like u said, but it wouldn’t let me cos it’s an Mpg, and it had a ‘syncronisation error’ or something. So, i rehndered my vid again as a Pal VCD file but that is bad quality and jerky, even in its non compressed form. However, this did allow me on virtual dub to open the video, but when i compressed it, even by a little bit the quality was real bad cos it was so slow. Any ideas? I’m currently trying to upload my 20mb vid which is uncompressed using anything other than the options on my video editor. Any ideas how long something this size will take to upload, or is it hugely dependant on the speed of my PC?Thanx for ure advice Phil, it was useful
Gnash, wail. This is usually because the program/thing you’re using to create the video in the first place doesn’t follow standards. VirtualDub is quite strict like that. (Of course I may be wrong, it does happen for other reasons, but hey)
Where is the video coming from beforehand? If it lets you save it as Uncompressed AVI that’s probably the best bet. It will be a monster file, probably a couple of hundred megabytes, but it means that it will definitely load into VirtualDub, and it will compress down to a size small enough to upload.
How long it’ll take to upload depends on your internet connection… if it’s over a modem it will take an hour and a half or so. If you’ve got anything faster - broadband, cable, whatever - it should be much faster.
Video compression on compooters is a bit of a hidden art. You’ll get the hang of it. 
Phil, just me
Have a look at VCDHelp for loads of really good information about fiddling with video formats etc.
There’s a whole section on converting formats and they give specific examples using the various downloadable tools that are available. You may find there’s too much information, but you should be able to find just the bit you need in there somewhere.
Have fun!
Graeme
thanx Graeme, i’ve had a look at that site but i guess i’m not too smart wen it comes to PC’s cos i don’t really understand alot of wot it says, or which i can aply to my situation. The video is currently in Mpeg2 format, but virtual dub won’t let me open it in that form. Oh well. Thanx for the advice anyway guys