Shrinking the filesize of movies! (by zipping)

[NTStuds]

Hi all,
I'm having a big problem that's causing me alot of trouble, in which I can't make my movies' filesize smaller.
I use Sony Vegas 6.0 to edit movies on a starwars game called Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy and stuff, but when I render movies long as 5 or 6 minutes, the filesize becomes extremely H-U-G-E! 2 weeks ago I made an avi demo with Vegas, and the length of the movie was 1:33(minutes:seconds).....and the filesize was 224MB! (that's of course if it's zipped with Winrar)
Can anyone lend me a hand here? I'v tried lots of methods like zipping it with 7z, and copressing it, but compressing screws up the quality, which isn't good. Is there any way of reducing the size without messin' up the quality?

-Please help me..:thanks:
P.S. No, I don't use FRAPS, or Game Cam or any of those... I used a built-in camera that comes with the game.

[check]

Well, what codec is being used to save the video?

[NTStuds]

lol.....what d'you mean what codec? I captured it by makin' demos, the I rendered the demos in-game to make a bunch of jpeg images, and then I imported the jpegs (as a sequence) into Vegas, so I could start editing them.
When I was done, I rendered it to an AVI file. (oh and the 'template' I rendered it was NTSC DV) Does that answer your question?

[Gehenna]

Well, what codec is being used to save the video?
Seems a reasonable question to ask. why the LOL?


Seems you are exporting AVI using DV,try using export to divx/xvid/x264..etc.etc.
How will you be viewing the finished video ?

[check]

No. The AVI file is just a container (like a zip file). Inside that is the video data. You can store the video file as a number of formats (just as you can store an image as jpg, bmp, etc etc). So do you know what format the file is being saved as?

EDIT: tip for the future: this sort of question is also more appropriate for the newbie forum rather than general discussion.

[Guest]

If you saved as DV, then your data rate is 25Mbps, so your file size for 90 seconds will be 25/8 * 90 MBytes = 281 MBytes. DV is designed for editing, as all frames are key frames; it is not useful for obtaining small file sizes for distribution. As Gehanna said, you need to select a different codec ("template") for rendering your output.

Trying to use ZIP on video (and especially already compressed video) is not a good idea because it doesn't take advantage of the characteristics of video that allow video codecs to achieve high compression ratios.

@check

He said he was making DV, so he did answer the question.

[check]

Ahhh, I saw that but wasn't 100% that this corresponded to anything in particular. I've not used Vegas before so thanks for picking up on that.

[NTStuds]

Guys I'm very confused right now. Ok, I'm not a noob, but I don't think I understand you question clearly. WHAT CODEC ar you talking about? The format I saved the movie as? (like for exampe MPEG-1,MPEG-2, NTSC-DV, HD-DV, etc?) That's what you mean, right? Otherwise I don't know what you're asking from me, lol.
I can save the movie file as avi, mov, mpeg/mpg, etc.. but does this really effect the outcome of the movie?
By the way, I zip it because that's the only way I can submit it anywhere, and that's the only way I can kind of 'reduce' the movie's filesize.

[Guest]

The word "codec" mean "compressor/decompressor". If you want to call that a "format", fine, we understand you. The DV format does not compress very highly.

The more you compress, the more you lose the quality of the original video. It's for you to decide the best tradeoff between quality and final file size. A format (codec) such as DivX or XviD will give you a good compromise.

[NTStuds]

The word "codec" mean "compressor/decompressor". If you want to call that a "format", fine, we understand you. The DV format does not compress very highly.

The more you compress, the more you lose the quality of the original video. It's for you to decide the best tradeoff between quality and final file size. A format (codec) such as DivX or XviD will give you a good compromise.

Thank You! Now I clearly understand, lol. So, you're saying I need to render my movies with the DivX or XviD format from now on? I'll do so then.:D But Sony Vegas doesn't let me render it with that format...I can't find DivX nor XviD. I see NTSC DV, HD-DV, NTSC DV (widescreen) and bunch of other NTSC DV types. Do I need to download DivX/XviD in this case?

[Guest]

Before you can use a codec that you don't already have, yes, you have to download it and install it.

Google will help you find the links.

[sysKin]

You might find it easier to export DV in Vegas and then use virtualdub to recompress to XviD.

rgb32-based editors, such as Vegas, often don't mix with XviD (and no one knows why).

[NTStuds]

You might find it easier to export DV in Vegas and then use virtualdub to recompress to XviD.

rgb32-based editors, such as Vegas, often don't mix with XviD (and no one knows why).

Thanks mate, I tried to compress it with Virtual Dub, and it worked pretty well, but still kinda left me with some blurr in the movie. Not bad.....although I remember there is 1 encoder that I used to use, (I just don't know the serials for it cause my trial expired ages ago) called DivX Converter. It comes with the DivX Creat bundle, I'll try that, it works pretty well, I just need a keygen for it cause it expires after every XX days.

[unmei]

[deleted]

[Guest]

@NTStuds

Please do not discuss cracks on this forum, per forum rule 6. Thank you.

[sysKin]

Thanks mate, I tried to compress it with Virtual Dub, and it worked pretty well, but still kinda left me with some blurr in the movie. Not bad.....although I remember there is 1 encoder that I used to use, (I just don't know the serials for it cause my trial expired ages ago) called DivX Converter. DivX is known to be more blurry than XviD. So sure, you can go BUY (I mean it - for starters, edit your post) commercial software - but this time, Xvid will do better (IMHO), you just need to change its settings to encode at higher quality (at the cost of larger file size).

[NTStuds]

OIC........thanks. Oh, sorry about violating rule 6. :S