Compress 20 minutes into 15MB

[JeReKu]

Hello to all those people who are superior to me in encoding DivX. (and hello to all those who are just like me and don't know what they're doing)

I'm really new at this encoding stuff and have learned a lot in several days of experementing and reading. But i am unable to succesfully accomplish what I want.

I have several hundred TV shows on my computer that are 20 minutes long and range from 15 mb to 250mb. They are all encoded initially using a variety of video and audio codecs (not by me). If someone could tell me how to make all my videos about 15mb i would be very gratefull.

I've been using virtualdub and i think the best way to encode them would be to use DivX ; - ) MPEG-4 Fast-Motion codec and the Fraunhofer-IIS's MPEG Audio Layer 3 codec. I belive i have the fraunhofer codec installed but in virtualdub i don't see it, i'm assuming that it is MPEG Layer-3 (i could be wrong), but i see two 'MPEG Layer-3's and i'm not sure which is which.

The problems i have encountered are that the sound always becomes displaced, although sometimes its not really noticable. Also, the compressed file is never 15mb, its always about 30mb smaller than the original (which isn't satisfactory when the initial file is 250mb). I once took a 15 mb file, ran it though virtualdub and it came out 20mb. (i don't understand lol)

So, if someone could maby tell me what codecs i should be using, how to set them up, and what settings to use in virtualdub (or in any other program i should use) and anywhere else they may be needed so i can set up a template for all my video files, I would be VERY grateful.

Thanks in advance.
-JeReKu

(I do realize that 15mb will make me loose A LOT of video and audio quality but I don't really care about that because i'm running very low on disk space.)

[Enchanter]

To be frank with you, I have yet to see a 20 min video compressed into a 15MB file, and remain comfortably watchable. The smallest I have ever seen is 20-25MB and I really can't imagine any worse-looking video than those.

That aside, I suggest you use DivX 5.02 and Virtualdub. Under the codec configuration, use 1-pass, Quality-based setting and use a quality of 0 - 2% (My...). That will give you the minimum possible quality you can possibly get. If necessary, reduce the resolution to around 320x() so as to enable the codec to reduce the filesize some more.

[Echo147]

The smallest videos I have are about 32MB, for episodes of The Simpsons. I don't generally like overcompressing TV eps, but when there's 13 seasons of a show one has to compromise!

This was using 22,050khz mono 32kbit mp3 & DivX 3.11 fast motion @ ~220kbit.

The only way you're ever going to manage 15MB is by decimating frames using VirtualDub. 10fps might just be slow enough to achieve 15MB. Otherwise it's simply going to skip a lot of frames, which will look awful.

The lowest bitrate I find is around the 200 mark when it comes to animated video @ 320x240. Lower than that really gets bad.