Best way to compress avi files for web viewing and best format for view

What is the best tool for reducing the file size of AVI files to post for viewing on the web?

Also what is the recommended format?

Daniel

Posted 2010-02-08T20:45:50.653

Reputation: 1 365

Answers

Yeah. The content is important here. But yet I'd recommend QuickTime format. I have personally tried Flash videos, they are no good at all when it comes to quality. But Quicktime videos gives superb qualities in the cost of less size.

Bibhas

Posted 2010-02-08T20:45:50.653

Reputation: 2 490

I tried several different solutions for screencast videos that I had to upload for a class I was teaching. Though I really prefer open formats, I had to bow to practical issues and finally went with .MOV files that I encoded with WinFF http://winff.org/ and then suggested that the students go with VLC as a viewer so at least they are using a good FOSS solution at their end. As mentioned in other places the actual editing was done in VirtualDub. If it's for posting to a video service I usually go with MP4 with great results.

– Dennis – 2010-02-08T22:14:48.740

For the conversion, I'd strongly recommend VirtualDub; it's free and fully featured.

The best format depends on the content of the video. Xvid is probably what you are after though.

RJFalconer

Posted 2010-02-08T20:45:50.653

Reputation: 9 791

I use FFmpeg on Ubuntu Linux to convert AVIs to MP4s. It reduces the file size by about 90% and the quality is OK. I use it for all my Youtube uploads.

Here's the command I use. Replace MVI_0963 (referenced twice) with the name of your video file.

ffmpeg -i MVI_0963.AVI -vcodec mpeg4 -acodec libfaac -ab 128kb -s 640x480 -b 1200kb -mbd rd -flags +4mv+aic -trellis 2 -cmp 2 -subcmp 2 -g 300 -pass 1/2 -r 25 mvi_0963.mp4

Bill Paetzke

Posted 2010-02-08T20:45:50.653

Reputation: 645