need to free up some hd space using compressor

[Craig Seeman]

Sorry but your explanation is inadequate. If you don’t want to delete the file it must have some future purpose. You can make any file small an unviewable/unusable. If you need to free up hard drive space you should archive the file at full resolution.

[Mark Francis]

what i want o do is keep the movie on my desktop and play it but not at 141 mb file size but something like 29mb file size. so how can i shrink 141 mb to 29 mb to free up some hd space?

Sorry but your explanation is inadequate. If you don’t want to delete the file it must have some future purpose. You can make any file small an unviewable/unusable. If you need to free up hard drive space you should archive the file at full resolution.

[Craig Seeman]

Data rate times duration equals file size.
Use H.264 codec for most efficient results.
My favorite bit rate calculator for Mac. It’s a widget.
https://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/calculate_convert/bitratepro.html

Roughly
675kbps times 6 minutes equals 29MB

The reasoning and the math is very simple. Even Compressor gives you an estimate file size for 1 hour of source material at a given data so all you need to do is figure out what that is per minute.

[Mark Francis]

this is good advice but i dont now how to use compressor to shrink my file sizes can you give me instructions?

[Craig Seeman]

I’m not sure if you read my post. The answer is not specific to Compressor. It’s a universal rule. Lower the data rate and you lower the file size. It’s as fundamentally as simple as, “I want to get to my destination sooner so the solution is to travel faster.” I’m not sure what the confusion is you’re having with “data rate impacts size” The bit rate calculator means you don’t even have to do the math by hand. Punch in the numbers you have and you get your answer.