# How can I make files (movies, video) smaller size? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 23, 2003, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-files-movies-video-smaller-size/156909 "2003-02-23T04:13:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrentLumkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9d8465/32.png) [@BrentLumkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrentLumkin)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-files-movies-video-smaller-size/156909/1 "2003-02-23T04:13:50Z")
Almost all of my movies/video are around 700MB and the such, so I’m just currious about this. Is there a way to zip them, compress them, or ANYTHING so that I can still keep them on my computer, yet make them not take up as much space on my computer. I know how to work WinZip, but it didn’t really make it all that small, if ANY smaller. Please, help me once again, lol. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-files-movies-video-smaller-size/156909/2 "2003-02-23T05:23:51Z")
You’re not going to have much luck. Any video format out there is already highly compressed, and it’s a bit tough to compress something that’s already compressed. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-files-movies-video-smaller-size/156909/3 "2003-02-23T05:32:04Z")
You could make them smaller by reducing the resolution or the color-depth. In other words, reduce the quality. I’m sure there’s utilities to do this, but I’ve never looked for one. I’ll see what I can dig up. ---
**Author:** ![Harald\_Bluetooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/9fc29f/32.png) [@Harald\_Bluetooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harald_Bluetooth)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-files-movies-video-smaller-size/156909/4 "2003-02-23T05:35:16Z")
The common video file formats AVI, MPEG, MOV and the like are already compressed, as you’ve found with winzip. I think you’re stuck. Even if you have video editing & rendering software, any reduction in size would be from reduction in resolution, frames-per-second, etc., reducing quality. How about getting a CD writer and stack of CDRs, or better yet, a big honkin’ hard drive for online storage? ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Urt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8491ac/32.png) [@Mr\_Urt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Urt)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-files-movies-video-smaller-size/156909/5 "2003-02-23T06:02:57Z")
as already said, your best bet is to burn cd’s or get a bigger hd. you’re probably referring to pirated (divx or xvid) avi’s which use mpeg4 compression. mpeg4 compresses (on average) at about a 10:1 ratio, so good luck at compressing that any further. also, using WinRAR would be more effective, but not by much. I’d be quite surprised if you got more than 50mb of compression, but then again, I’ve never tried. ---
**Author:** ![Iteki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eada6e/32.png) [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-files-movies-video-smaller-size/156909/6 "2003-02-23T10:42:18Z")
What you could do is comprimise further on quality be recompressing them. You could change the dimensions, frame rate, sound quality, colour depth and keyframe settings to get a lower file size. I am compressing some of my DVDs to watch on my cell-phone, and I get them down to 50 megs at bout and inch wide, high quality. If you liked the films enough to keep them, and they aren’t incredibly hard to get, please do consider buying them. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-files-movies-video-smaller-size/156909/7 "2003-02-23T10:48:58Z")
Why the heck would you want to watch a movie that’s only an inch wide? I must say I find that surprising. ---
**Author:** ![Iteki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eada6e/32.png) [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-files-movies-video-smaller-size/156909/8 "2003-02-23T12:08:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Iteki \* > \*\*to watch on my cell-phone, and I get them down to 50 megs at bout and inch wide, high quality. > \*\* The cellphone with the 23inch screen was a bit heavy for day-to-day usage. I might have exaggerated, its 176 pix wide, so with 72 dpi resolution they are maybe 2 and a half inches wide? If you are still wondering why, well the main reason is “because I can” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Harmonix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Harmonix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonix)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-files-movies-video-smaller-size/156909/9 "2003-02-23T12:48:12Z")
Iteki you’re my hero. Thats something i’d so do if I had a pda phone. ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-files-movies-video-smaller-size/156909/10 "2003-02-23T12:55:42Z")
You could try compressing them into another format, such as Flash. It keeps colour brightness better than Windows Media does, but is slightly more noisy looking (less artificial “smoothness”). You can increase the smoothness, but it tends to end up overblurry. We use Flix Pro - [http://www.wildform.com/flix/](http://www.wildform.com/flix/) - as a professional use product, and it’s great. What you will want to do is keep the sound quality as high as possible. Fuzzier video is bad enough, fuzzy sound is almost unbearable. A second solution would be burning them on to CD, as they’re only around 700MB you can get disks that size. It sound like you prefer them on your harddrive though. ---
**Author:** ![BrentLumkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9d8465/32.png) [@BrentLumkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrentLumkin)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-files-movies-video-smaller-size/156909/11 "2003-02-23T19:35:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Iteki \* > \*\*If you liked the films enough to keep them, and they aren’t incredibly hard to get, please do consider buying them. \*\* Oh of course, anytime I download ANYTHING, have it be a movie, song, software, etc… I always try to find it to buy, always. ---
**Author:** ![Indefatigable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9d8465/32.png) [@Indefatigable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indefatigable)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-files-movies-video-smaller-size/156909/12 "2003-02-23T19:54:37Z")
If you zip them, that’s storage only-- you can’t use them while they’re zipped. If you do anything else to them, it’ll degrade the quality. Get yourself some sort of high-capacity storage device like a CD burner and some blank disks, or some of those mini-hard-drive things (can’t remember what those are called). ---
**Author:** ![xvxdarkknightxvx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/34f0e0/32.png) [@xvxdarkknightxvx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xvxdarkknightxvx)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2003, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-i-make-files-movies-video-smaller-size/156909/13 "2003-02-23T23:01:03Z")
There’s always DVD burners…4.7gigs can hold a lot.