Convert 16gb video file to mb or kb?

Question

My company uses The Canon FS100 video camera. They are just new on the market but anyway, we record with a 16gb SD CARD and when i bring those files into the computer, well that is just way to much space. 20 cameras times 16gb so thats a lot. So i need to know how to convert 16 gb from the sd card, into like mb or kb space. PLEASE HELP!!!

Answer 1

u just need the videos smaller? like 16gigs of movie to 2 gigs or somthing?

id change the resoultion of the files along with saving it as a "worse quality" file type

most video editors will do this "vegas video" works well

Answer 2

You're not going to be able to get anywhere near the space savings you're asking for - you can't compress video by 3 to 6 orders of magnitude and hope to have anything that's even remotely watchable.  Changing the camera settings will help, but it's not going to do enough.  

What do  you need all that video for?  If we understood what you're doing we may be able to offer a workable solution.

Answer 3

Now.. it seems that the camcorder is saving the file in mpeg2 DVD format, regular XP setting as 9MBPS  = 4.5 GB for 1 hour video. If this assumtion is correct, then the 16GB file is actually 4 hours of videos...  And that is pretty good. If you change the quality to lets say "LP" you will get again the same 16GB file on your 16GB card - it will never be smaller (use smaller card for smaller file:-)) , only this time it will contain 8 hours of video:-)

The only way to make that smaller is convert it on your computer to something different. Always at quality loss, BUT our human eyes will not likely recognize the quality loss.

First you can cut the huge long video into smaller/shorter clips. Then start converting. You have virtually three reasonable options -

1) create SVCD disc - good quality, mpg file mpeg2 compression, possible to play on most DVD players - 40 minutes is about 700 mega = 1 CD disc... you can put up to 6x this amount on single DVD disc but you need software which will allow you to do that (most regular burning sw wouldn't - try DVDlab pro)

2) create Divx (or xvid - "same fruit from different tree") file - AVI file, mpeg4 compression, playable on SOME DVD players (look for logo DivX) and playable on every computer.

You can put almost any length on single CD (=700mega) BUT - that SIGNIFICANTLY degrades quality. Reasonable quality is up to 90 minutes per single CD, if the movie is longer, split it onto 2 CD, the quality will be much much better.

3) create WMV file - the lowest quality, playable only on computers (at least I did not come across DVD player playing this format, but they might exist), the files are the smallest. This is the best format to e-mail, YouTube etc...

There are tons of other formats, but these 3 are the best pick I would suggest (apart from the situation, that you wanna play it on iPod:-).. you'd need a different one for that)

Alternatively, you can just split the video in one hour blocks and burn each hour on single DVD - no conversion, no quality loss, no extra work.

Please, let me know, it that worked or if you need more info.

Have fun. Johnny

Answer 4

if you need the quality then you are stuck with big files, get a BIG hdd maybe  500gb+ all the files add up to 320 gb. or choose another compression (higher) but the quality will not be as good. that should make the file sizes smaller for the same length .

if you get the film onto the pc then you can convert it to mpeg mp4, or divx maybe you could get it down to 1-2gb but hat would be bad quality.

you dont say what the film are for thats a lot of film, if thats what your company does then got the moneyout and invest in a dedicated video pc with loads of room.

sorry cant be any more help RR