.AVI file size calculations

[ahinkle]

I need to learn more about .AVI files and the amount of space they can take. I will have a variety of people producing clips (.AVI files) for me. We use a screen resolution of 1024 x 768. I want clips to be able to make use of the entire screen. I'll want to compress these if possible; upload them to our server (SDSL access), and then download them to our remote sites (ADSL access) onto their local computer. For example, what is the range of disk space required for a 30 second .AVI file? I assume that the quality and complexity of the graphics play a huge role in this equation. So a 30 second .AVI file consisting of a capture of a PowerPoint presentation would take significantly less space than that of a full fledged movie.

1) But how can I estimate what the size range would be?

2) I assume that it's linear, so that a 3 minute long .AVI file of the same type would be roughly 6 times as long as a 30 second clip. True?

3) Are there alternative formats to the .AVI file format that I should consider?

4) And finally, are there sites where I can find clips in the 1024 x 768 resolution and using the whole dimension so I can download and experiment?

 

[gargouille]

Think you'd be better served to address your questions to google.com or your favorite search engine...or look thru the other ng's here...there may be one that specializes in your field of interest.
That's a lotta' homework to tackle...I'll let you do it.

 

[dakota81]

A 30 second .avi file can be anywhere in size from a couple hundred kilobytes up to fifteen or twenty megabyte, just depends on how much compression you want.

It's actually a better quality/size ratio if you halve the dimensions to say 512x384 and then have the media player expand the video to full screen. Just go out and grab a video compression program and try it out for different compression schemes, like divx, xvid, mpeg-4, etc. You can set the bitrate for the encoding, so you can get a size close to what you want.

 

[evildoughboi]

i dink that mpeg-4 compression works the best and compresses it to a very small file. it has great resolution, compared to other compressors.

 

[Enkrypted]

If you need to learn more about AVI's<as well as other video formats and codecs and all that good stuff>I recommend checking this link out. It has ALOT of helpful information:

http://www.jmcgowan.com/avi.html

Enkrypted
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