Compressing video files?

[DeeBye]

I've been playing around with Fraps lately to capture video footage of my World of Warcraft gameplay. I'd love to be able to post some WoW gameplay video footage sometime in the future, but I cannot seem to find a way to compress the AVI footage into something that won't kill my bandwidth in three seconds flat.

Currently, I am using VirtualDub to compress the videos. I am thus far unimpressed. The best I've accomplished using Fraps and VirtualDub was to compress a 4 second WoW video capture to 2.86 MB. This is @ 15 FPS, and using 80% compression. It was also set to "half size", meaning the resolution was 400 x 300.

I'm a complete newbie to video editting, so I'd love to hear some input from those of you who are experienced at this sort of thing.

Here's a picture of my son playing with his Tonka dump truck (wearing his Toronto Maple Leafs jammies). He likes to ride it around like a tricycle.

[Drasca]

Actually, have you considered what video and audo codecs you've been using? If you haven't already, go to www.divx.com and download & install their free video codec.

Open Virtua Dub, hit Control-P or on the main window go under the "Video" menu and hit "Compression..." Select Divx 5.1.1 I'm sure you'll find the compression much better than standard.

[DeeBye]

Actually, have you considered what video and audo codecs you've been using? If you haven't already, go to www.divx.com and download & install their free video codec.

Open Virtua Dub, hit Control-P or on the main window go under the "Video" menu and hit "Compression..." Select Divx 5.1.1 I'm sure you'll find the compression much better than standard.

I don't know what codec I used. Here's a screenie of my VirtualDub compression thingie.


I do not want to install DivX because the current free version contains adware. Is there an older version I can use?

[swirly]

You could try a xvid codec. It seems to be popular at the moment. A simple google search for xvid gives http://www.xvid.org/ and http://www.divx-digest.com/software/xvid.html. Xvid is an open source mpeg-4 codec so shouldn't have any of the adware problems you are worried about.

[DeeBye]

You could try a xvid codec.  It seems to be popular at the moment.  A simple google search for xvid gives http://www.xvid.org/ and http://www.divx-digest.com/software/xvid.html.  Xvid is an open source mpeg-4 codec so shouldn't have any of the adware problems you are worried about.

Awesome! Many thanks for the linkage. Using XviD, I was able to compress the video from 2.86 MB down to 370 KB, while still keeping very high quality.

[pakman]

www.oldversion.com is a great website to get old software from. They have old divx installations that do not have any spyware/adware contained in them.

[[wcip]Angel]

Awesome!  Many thanks for the linkage.  Using XviD, I was able to compress the video from 2.86 MB down to 370 KB, while still keeping very high quality.

So when do we, the wretched masses, get to see this epic masterpiece? :)

[WarLocke]

I'd like to see some WoW footage too, f only to compare it to CoH. :P

[swirly]

Just remember to tell people who you try and show the video to, that they will need the xvid codec to play it. I've ran into that problem quite a bit. I send a file to a person and then they will say that all they get is sound, which means they don't have the video codec. I often get blank stairs when I try to tell them about getting the codec so I would suggest providing linkage to the codec at the same time as when you post the video. : )

[Drasca]

There are two free versions. The "Divx Pro" with adware and the Free standard version without:

http://download.divx.com/divx/DivX511.exe

Are you telling me the standard version has adware I don't know about?

[DeeBye]

There are two free versions. The "Divx Pro" with adware and the Free standard version without:

http://download.divx.com/divx/DivX511.exe

Are you telling me the standard version has adware I don't know about?

Ah, I didn't realise that there were two versions. I'll check into the adfree version.

Thanks for the input.