You Tube Formula?

[codayop]

Hello to you all - you wonderful people of the digital video world!
I'm a newbie here and would like some help/advice/pointing in the right direction if possible.

I have good quality (resolution!) home made movies I want to share with people (varying around the 2GB AVI size) but need to compress them down so I can show them on You Tube or similar.

I've experimented with the Encoder within Premiere Pro 2.0 to get sizes down as much as I can, (Mpeg1, 2, Real, Flash, AVI etc) but I'm losing picture quality as a result.
So further experimenting is being done using ImToo, Blaze and others but to no avail - either sync is out or resolution is too rough.

Can anyone tell me in simple (I think I need it spelling out!) terms what I should do and what progs I should use. - I'd be eternally greatful.

I'd like to be able to compress a 2GB AVI to 100MB Mpeg - is this possible? If not, what is best?

Thanks tons.
Rich

(I've just been pointed in the direction of Virtual Dub, but have no idea how to use this in connection with the codecs that are online)

[olyteddy]

Welcome to the forum. A good place to start, at this or any other forum is to s-e-a-r-c-h. That way, if you don't get the exact answer you need, at least you can ask a less general question. You might be surprised how many times a question such as yours has been asked (and answered!) As to 2GB AVI to 100MB MPEG, well anything is possible. If the AVI is an 'uncompressed' one you might not even notice a difference. If, however, the AVI is 'XVID' then you'll regret converting. Suggested searches: 'youtube' 'youtube posting' 'virtual dub guide' youtube guide' ... You get the pattern?

[drfsupercenter]

I reccomend Auto Gordian Knot (google it)

Just put in 95MB as the target size (gives you room for error) and it will encode it for you.

[codayop]

Welcome to the forum. A good place to start, at this or any other forum is to s-e-a-r-c-h. That way, if you don't get the exact answer you need, at least you can ask a less general question. You might be surprised how many times a question such as yours has been asked (and answered!) As to 2GB AVI to 100MB MPEG, well anything is possible. If the AVI is an 'uncompressed' one you might not even notice a difference. If, however, the AVI is 'XVID' then you'll regret converting. Suggested searches: 'youtube' 'youtube posting' 'virtual dub guide' youtube guide' ... You get the pattern?

Hi and thanks. Yes, I did the search of many You Tube threads, a lot of them was ripping FROM YT, others were a tad too technical for me to understand (maybe I should stick to knitting or tiddly winks. But if you dont ask, you dont get!!)- and of course I couldnt bother any of the members with a PM as I only have 1 post to my name (10 required!).
The AVI's in question are Premiere AVI's which I'm lead to believe are NOT XVID so I think I'm free to Compress using what I want.
Windows Movie Maker does the job, kind of, but resolution is not that impressive.
Onwards and upwards.

[codayop]

I reccomend Auto Gordian Knot (google it)

Just put in 95MB as the target size (gives you room for error) and it will encode it for you.

Lovely, thanks, d/loaded and currently dubbing as we speak. (after running Auto GK it flipped into Virtual Dub)

I'll credit all your names on my films when I make it big! (if it works)

Rich

[codayop]

OK, Virtual Dub finished. End result is a file out of Sync and with a DivX watermark. Resolution is superb though!
Is it a requirement to buy all the relative software to release me of the watermark?

[olyteddy]

Get the XVID codec. It's open source and as good as DivX.

[anonymez]

Youtube encodes to FLV1 at 320x240, doesn't really matter how good the source is, the best you could do is make it more convenient to upload.