Compressing A File

jrwagh333 · 13 Mar 2009 at 16:55

What would be the best way to compress a file, say a video, but it could be anything.

I want to compress a video to send to my friend over Windows-Live-Messenger or similar. Is there a way I can keep the quality and reduce the file size some how?

wesley · 13 Mar 2009 at 17:20

no point as the video will be already compressed, ie divx etc

bledd · 13 Mar 2009 at 19:23

how big is the file
how long is the video
where is the video from
what format is the video

saving in windows movie maker (if it's a home movie) will cut the size down.

zzzJonny · 13 Mar 2009 at 21:53

You could re-encode it with a better codec, I guess.
You've got to be realistic, but you can lower the resolution and/or bitrate if it'd be ok
.
I don't think archive compression will work particularly well if its already well encoded, but you could try 7zip using LZMA.

SimonC · 14 Mar 2009 at 00:53

Would it not be easier just to upload it somewhere, got freespace?

Hamster · 14 Mar 2009 at 05:13

Aside from compressing the file with winrar or 7zip if you want to keep the integrity of the file/s, i would look at a different way of sending the file. Unless i've been doing something wrong, WLM is not the best or quickest way of transferring a file by a long shot. Try uploading it somewhere (eg rapidshare) or perhaps set up an ftp server temporarily.