How to compress onlie videos before viewing

[Danny Hays]

can you export as MP4, FLV (Flash) or WMV? All these are web streamable. Danny Hays

[Craig Seeman]

Please explain. Generally if the video is online it’s already compressed.
If you want to put a video online on a web page you need to compress.

It’s not clear what you want from your question. You haven’t included any information about what you want to do and what hardware software you have or might be willing to buy if needed.

[Bill Davis]

Kalid,

Compressing anything is a balancing act.

The more compression you add, the smaller the file gets.

Smaller files download faster and stream better than larger files.

BUT

The more compression you add, the worse the picture looks.

Also compression isn’t ONE thing – it’s MANY things.

Compression involves deciding how many frames you’ll feed in a unit of time – 30 frames a second? 15 frames a second? 10 frames? It also involves the SIZE of those frames. Will they be full digital video standard frames of 720×480 pixels? Or can they be half that size which saves you FOUR TIMES the data since you’re losing pixels in both horizontal and vertical dimensions? Or will another frame size be better?

Then there’s the whole discussion of the actual CODEC scheme you use. Some compression/decompressors are really efficient – some less so. But some of the less efficient ones are are more COMPATIBLE with older computers.

So you’ve also got to understand the type of USER that will likely be viewing your work and what kind of hardware, operating system, and software they’ll be running.

As you can see, it’s VERY complex.

The computer companies are pushing for standards. Apple with Quicktime. Windows with Windows Media 9. But even inside these purported “standards” there are variations that can trip you up.

Like I said, it’s very complex right now.

Sorry there isn’t an easier answer – but that’s the state of the game right now.