[skalie]

...... was dropped off this afternoon on a CD ( .avi format ), the idea is for me to put it on the web.

I'm trying to compress it using iMovie, but my poor iBook ( G3 600mhz ) tells me that it's going to take longer to do it everytime I look. ( 629 minutes left at the moment ).

How does someone manage to make a 400 meg file out of a 2 minute movie is my query, I guess.

[skalie]

783 minutes and counting, it's not going to compress is it?

[hickey]

just an idea, have you tried VLC, or even isquint? Cause I doubt you have FCP on your comp.

[zwiebel_]

Originally Posted by hickey

just an idea, have you tried VLC, or even isquint? ...

^^Second that. Also, QuickTime Pro maybe?

[Uncle Skeleton]

QT Amateur is an excellent and simple free alternative to QT Pro for encoding, and it has batch support as well. iMovie is designed specifically for editing home movies; it is completely unsuitable for any other task (like compression).

How does someone manage to make a 400 meg file out of a 2 minute movie is my query, I guess.

avi, like mov, is a container format that can contain a video payload of highly compressed content (like divx) or uncompressed, or anywhere in between. Uncompressed as I recall takes about 65 GB per hour of footage (at standard definition), or about 1 GB per minute. Sounds like your codec is about DV-level compression. If you hit cmd-i in QT it will tell you the video and audio formats in your movie (I'm guessing it will say DV).

[stevesnj]

try ffmpegx http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/8988

easy to use and can convert even for iPod. Use .mpeg files so its easy to view for Mac and Windoze users.

[skalie]

Originally Posted by Uncle Skeleton

If you hit cmd-i in QT it will tell you the video and audio formats in your movie (I'm guessing it will say DV).

DV - PAL, "save as" appears to me to be a Quicktime Pro option.

Thanks for all the info everyone, but after spending too much time on this one ( couldn't quite figure out iSquint ), I ended up taking the CD around to a friend who has Premiere.

I'll come back again when I've actually got some time to experiment with the various options.

[travisimo]

if you're compressing for the web you need to use either H264 or buy sorenson squeeze. and 400 mb for 2 min is really easy to do it the codec is "animation" or "none" and for your future reference it's always better to compress for web with an uncompressed source.. always avoid doing it from a already compressed codec.. like sorenson video.. it's like zipping a zip file twice.. it just dosn't work as good as the first time..

[mduell]

400MB for 2 minutes is ~27Mbps... sounds right for DV.