Compressing 3.3 gigs to 800 mbs -- possible?

[tomster2300]

Hey,

I created a movie in Premiere Pro and when I exported it it turned out to be 3 gigs. I don't have a dvd burner, so I'm trying to compress it somehow down to 800 mbs so that it'll fit on a regular cd-r. It's a movie I did for my A.P. Lit teacher and he wanted a copy of it to show as an example to his class next year. He's not too tech savy so he needs something which is simple and he can just run off his pc. I'm thinking an avi file which he could just click on and play in windows media player full screen -- he has a t.v. which has a pc - t.v. converter so he can show it on screen. I know a dvd would be easiest but I lack the ability to create one.

The other catch is that I deleted all the orignal pro clips and only have the final avi movie on my pc (I dont have a big hard drive and it was filling up). Does anybody know how I would compress this monster or if need be what free programs I might be able to use to do so?

Thanks.

[ZeratulsAvenger]

You can span it over multiple CD's I believe, possibly by a .rar archive and then restore them on the teachers computer, but that would be more of a solution for a perminent solution to put it on his computer, not something you do every time you wish to show it. I don't think you can get 3GB down to 800MB unless you re-encode to a much less quality setting. Still doubtful as far as I know.

[SonicVanguard]

If he's not tech savvy, try re-encoding in MPEG-1 at a low bitrate (1200 or so) at 640x480. Using MPEG-1, you shouldn't have any playback issues since MPEG-1 is a fair use license on any computer platform.

You can re-encode within Premiere Pro - just put the movie in the timeline, create a new project, and encode using a codec/bitrate that will work.

[Angelus]

compressing to mpeg-4 would give u the best quality and compression out of anything available. Try AutoGK and use Xvid to compress the video, both are free and will work well

[SonicVanguard]

MPEG-4 is problematic at best on a school's computer. DivX/XviD codecs don't play well with others and could mess up existing codecs if they are not installed correctly or are hacked versions of good codecs.

MPEG-1 is a standard - nothing will have to be installed on the school's computer so there is no concern of messing anything up on the school's computer.

[tomster2300]

Alright, I forgot to mention that his computer is running Windows 98 if that makes a difference. Thanks for all the advice and I'm going to work on it this weekend. I'll tell you how it turns out.

[SonicVanguard]

MPEG-1 all the way. Win98 has a huge issue with any MPEG-4 codec, hacked or not.