How To Easily Compress Your Video Files in Vista

When recording video with your digital cameras, they can leave you with pretty big files for just a few seconds of video. Windows has a program that allows you to shrink these files by almost 1/3 in just a few steps.

Windows Vista and XP has a program called Windows Movie Maker which can be used to slightly edit videos. For the purpose of this tutorial, I'll just show you how to use that program to compress your videos by almost a third to save storage space. I'll also make a tutorial for Windows XP shortly.

When recording video on a Digital Camera, you usually get a slightly compressed AVI. In my example of the 2004 NYE fireworks in Las Vegas, my 3 minute video with sound was about 48 MB, as shot from my Canon PowerShot G5. After compressing the video to a WMV, the file turned out to be just shy of 19 MB.

Open Windows Movie Maker by pressing the Start Button > All Programs > Windows Movie Maker

The program will open. Theres a few main parts to the program.

• On the top of course is the menu bar.
• On the left is the Tasks.
• In the middle is basically your Movie Library where you can edit your videos.
• On the right is where you can preview your videos
• On the bottom is where you drag your videos incase you want to combine videos together (along with transitions if you like)

So, to compress a video, add the video you want to the Movie library by Importing the movie. You can do this in a few ways.

1. Just drag and drop the video file from the folder directly into the middle Library secion of the program; or
2. Click File > Import from Digital Video Camera or File > Import Media Items; or
3. Click the Import Media button just below the menu bar; or
4. Under the Import section in the Tasks menu (left side) click the corresponding button. In our case, select Videos

Once you have imported a video into the library, you can access them from the program now. Select the video you want to compress and drag it into the bottom Storyboard where it says "Drag Media Here".

Next we want to Publish the Video, which will also compress it. You can also do this in a number of ways.

1. Click File > Publish Movie; or
2. In the Task menu under Publish to select where you want to save the video to

Select where you want to save the file to. In my example I will choose This Computer.

Enter in a file name for your video, and select the destination. I will save my video to my Desktop so I can easily find my compressed video.

Next it will ask you how you would like to publish the movie. I selected Best Quality for playback on my computer (recommended) because it still shrinks the video by about 1/3 if you select the same settings I have. Of course you can play around with the video, to increase the quality of the video or decrease. It's all up to you. You can even set an exact file size that you want your video to be by selecting Compress To: and selecting a file size. You can also play around with More Settings and choose different file types and formats. All of this will affect the final size of your video. So play around if you wish.

Next, click Publish.

Your computer will do its thing and will save your file wherever you told it to.