Trying to compress video to send in e-mail

Factual Questions
1

I have a video that is 8239kb long that I want to e-mail to my friends. I tried e-mailing it and my MSN mail keeps freezing up (I guess its too long), so I tried compressing it.

I right clicked the file on my desktop and clicked on save to, then compress folder. I now have a little folder with a zipper on my desktop. I tried sending that, figuring it must be a smaller file now; however, when I try to send it as an attachment, MSN still says its 8239kb and keeps freezing up.

What am I doing wrong?

2

Almost all graphics/video files are already in a compressed format, so there’s not much left to squeeze out of them.

3

Nothing. I don’t know exactly which codec (compression scheme) was used to make the video in the first place, but rest assured that the video is already compressed. You’ll get the same results if you try to compress an MP3 - standard PCM audio is around 10MB/minute while most MP3 files are 1MB/minute - you just can’t compress it any more.

There are compression programs (like ACE) that might make your compressed file slightly smaller than the ZIP format most people (and Windows itself) use, but it’s not gonna be that much more than what you’re getting now. The best way to reduce the size would be to re-encode the video, but keep in mind that the picture quality will suffer if you do this. Lemme know if you wanna do that and I’ll find a HOW-TO for you.

4

You could use a file splitting program to reduce the file to a series of smaller chunks along with a little executable that would reunite them. The you send each fragment in a separate email.

Do a search on download.com or wherever for “file splitting”.

5

I take fairly large .mpeg movies with my digital camera and I can compress them down a bit with Windows Movie Maker. It does degrade the video quite a bit, but it makes them small enough to email/post on the web. It can make a 5 MB clip under 1 MB.

6

I should add, it changes the .mpegs to .WMV files, but windows media player opens them.

7

It is easier for everyone if you just post it on a web site for others to download. If the file is too big for the web site, split it up, post the individual parts one at a time, along with instructions in the several emails you send out.

Sending large attachments in emails is never a good thing, except as a possible last resort.