Program to compress AVI files

[Paul Smith]

On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 9:01 PM, Mark Haney <mhaney at ercbroadband.org> wrote:
>>>>> Thanks to both. I am talking about encoding to a smaller file size. Any
>>>>> ideas?
>>>>
>>>> mencoder would be a good program.
>>>>
>>>> I would suggest first playing it with mplayer and seeing what the
>>>> current
>>>> encoding is, if it is already xvid/divx/x264 encoded you won't
>>>
>>> I've found mencoder not to be quite as functional as transcode for
>>> certain
>>> applications.  However, I do agree with Roger, you need to find out the
>>> existing codec/aspect ratio before tinkering with the file. Instead of
>>> using
>>> mplayer, I'd try just using 'file <videoname>', that gives you a good
>>> amount
>>> of info on the file (just in case the file is on a remote system as mine
>>> are
>>> sometimes).
>>>
>>> I do have a couple of standard lines for adjusting video files that I'll
>>> be
>>> glad to share if you want.  They aren't anything more than typical
>>> transcode/mencoder lines with basic options that I"ve saved since I can't
>>> always remember the options.
>>
>> Thanks to all for all helpful comments.
>>
>> The details of my file are:
>>
>> $ file example.avi
>> example.avi: RIFF (little-endian) data, AVI, 1024 x 768, 30.00 fps,
>> video: uncompressed
>> $
>>
>> Paul
>>
>
> That looks like raw video to me.  There's no codec mentioned at or, nor any
> audio stream encoded.  And 1024X768 @30fps has to be a monster file size.
>  You should be able to drop that file down a lot with almost any codec.  I
> would suggest Xvid (or H264, but I like Xvid more) and use the AC3 audio
> codec (if audio is present).
>
> May i ask what this file is?  And where you got it?  Is it an output from a
> video camera?  I've never seen raw video at that resolution before.

It is a screencast, taken with a program to capture the screen as a video.

Paul