Xfire's huge video sizes

[DeathWarrior]

I've recently been considering starting my own game playthroughs/reviews on Youtube. I've been testing Xfire and I like it so far except that the avi files it produces are massive (it reaches 1 GB after about 1 min 50 sec), and Youtube requires videos to be 100 MB in size or lower. Is there a good video converter somewhere that will let me keep a good screen resolution/quality and reduce a 10 minute video to 100 MB or lower?

 

Xfire is the one I like the most so far, as WeGame was confusing, Camstudio is poor quality, Taksi has no audio support, and I don't want to pay for FRAPS and Gamecam unless there's no other alternative.

[WoogieMonster]

Xfire's videos are massive, but when you upload them they get compressed down to "youtube size". I don't know if there is a way to get a copy of that compressed video or if the video can be compressed without uploading it first, but it is certainly worth asking on xfire's tech forums, especially if you can't get FRAPs.

[Illiad86]

You can either use VirtualDub or Windows Movie Maker actually to compress the videos :)

 

Applies for Xfire as well :)

 

 

Why is the AVI movie generated by Fraps so big? How can I reduce the size?

 

The filesize is big because there isn’t enough time to encode the movie while the game is running. The movie frames are slightly compressed, but still require a large amount of disk space due to the high resolutions. Once you have finished capturing you should convert the saved AVI into one of the popular compressed movie formats such as mpeg or divx. Recommended programs for doing this are tmpgenc (Tsunami Mpeg Encoder), and VirtualDub.

 

Using VirtualDub is quite easy. To create a compressed version of the AVI follow these steps:

 

* Start VirtualDub

* Select File->Open and choose the AVI in the Fraps directory you wish to compress.

* Select Video->Compression and choose the codec you wish to compress with (usually divx)

* Select File->Save As AVI and specify a filename for the new AVI.

 

If you have Windows XP you can also use Windows Movie Maker to compress the video files. If you use Windows Movie Maker it's recommended that you keep your Fraps video files at 800x600 or under.

[LHammonds]

Try AVS Video Converter.

 

Typically, you capture video in an uncompressed (raw) format or with a proprietary compression that allows for very basic compression to keep the initial file size smaller.

 

Either way, the captured video is almost never what you want to upload somewhere...same with screenshots.

 

The advantage to these large "source" files is that you can edit them and create the correct-sized output for what you are trying to accomplish.

 

For example, you might want to output that video for a format that will work well on a iPhone/iTouch with a certain dimension size and compression algorithm. Or you might want to output the video in the proper size for YouTube...possible for high-def YouTube. Or maybe you are trying to get the dimensions and compression setup correctly for output to a DVD so you can play it on any TV/DVD player you run across.

 

But once you re-size and apply a specific compression algorithm, you don't want to edit and re-compress the already-compressed video. You always want to go back to the original, uncompressed video or your results will look horrible...like a fax-of-a-fax.

 

LHammonds