Reduce Size of a DVD File...

[masterworld]

Hi.
I work with Videostudio 7.0
I created a 5 minute-Ntsc DVD 267Mb video file
But I need it to be only 100Mb (if less, better...maybe 90Mb would be all right)
What can I do?
Thanks a lot.

[Ken Berry]

It depends what you want it for.

If it for sending to friends or to put on a website, then you need to convert it from its current DVD-compliant mpeg-2 format, to one of the smaller formats such as mpeg-4/DivX/Xvid or Windows Media Format (.wmv), or even mpeg-1.

The problem is that VS7 cannot handle mpeg-4 or wmv files, only mpeg-1. So if you wanted it in either of the first two formats, you would need to download a free program called SUPER which can convert from just about any format to just about any other... Or you could upgrade your VS7 to the current version VS10+.

[masterworld]

or even mpeg-1.

I want to upload it to a web site....but I prefer to stay with VS7.0(for the moment)...so how´s mpeg-1 in quality terms?
thanks a lot for your help!

PS: Do you know if there are some upgrades available for 7.0?

[Ken Berry]

Mpeg-1 can, at its best, provide a decent quality video, akin to good quality VHS tape. When used to burn to a VCD, you can fit up to around 70 minutes of mpeg-1 onto a CD (i.e. 700 MB, which will give you some idea of the relative size of the files it produces.)

There are certainly an array of updates for VS7 available on the Ulead website at http://www.ulead.com/tech/vs/vs.htm Take note that not all these updates will work with VS7 SE versions, if that happens to be what you have...

[GeorgeW]

Mpeg-1 can, at its best, provide a decent quality video, akin to good quality VHS tape. When used to burn to a VCD, you can fit up to around 70 minutes of mpeg-1 onto a CD (i.e. 700 MB, which will give you some idea of the relative size of the files it produces.)

Agreed with Ken that VCD can give you decent quality (sometimes even better than VHS, but that probably has something to do with the original source quality, and the encoding hardware/software).

Just a note on how much you can fit on a CD-R. If you encode within VCD specs, and burn as a VCD, you can actually get around 74 minutes on a 650mb CD-R, and around 80 minutes on a 700mb CD-R -- you go by the number of minutes the CD-R is rated for when you are properly encoding and burning VCD's (the actual mpegs are larger than the CD-R sizes, but it should work if your software is burning them properly in VCD mode).

Regards,
George

[masterworld]

Ken, Thanks a lot for all your help.
Good Luck.