Video help

Windows Movie Maker is pretty shit for any kind of video editing and I highly recommend finding something else. Not only does it basically only export to wmv — which is no good for anybody not on Windows, and cannot be imported into many other things thanks to Microsoft actively shutting down those programs which allow it — but it's fairly limited with exportation options.

A good program will allow you to specifically alter the quality and dimensions to result in exactly what you're after at a reasonable file size; Windows Movie Maker allows neither of these if I recall correctly, instead limiting you to a bunch of pre-set options.

Try Virtual Dub. When combined with DivX, you can create some excellent quality video with the best file size. It's free and basic, but still comes with a good range of special effects (levels, hue, blurring, sharpening, etc) and does the job extremely well. Simply open your AVI with it, go to the "Video" and "Sound" tool-bar menus, make sure both are in "Full Processing Mode", and then go to the respective "Compression" menus in each.

For video compression, you want DivX. If it allows you, go to the additional options screen to pump up the compression/quality (it seems like a dream come true for the maximum of both to be the same slider, however it takes longer to process). For sound, you obviously want mp3 at a minimum of 128kbps. If you find that you cannot create mp3s with as high a bitrate as 128kbps, install LAME onto your system. You can go right up to 320kbps for maximum quality (and minimum compression, thus a large file size).

Hopefully this insightful post will be of assistance.

I use sorenson 3 for my codec using quicktime movies

Export it as an uncompressed avi form whatever it is you made it in, and use sorenson squeeze to convert it to whatever format you want.

My toplist of prefered filetypes for watching "clips":

1. Quicktime

2. Xvid

3. DivX

4. mpeg

Formats don't matter to me, I have VLC.

Quote from dissonance

Formats don't matter to me, I have VLC.

me too + mplayer =)

Camtasia FTW!