Compressing video for email

[Magill]

I have two webcams. The first is a "Lebeca" connected to my home computer. The second is a Logitech notebook webcam that I picked up this weekend. The Logitech software has a handy feature that compresses video for email. It seems I can record 30 seconds of video (at 640x480) and sound with that webcam and it is compressed to, maybe, 1MB. The Lebeca with the same settings produces a filesize of closer to 40MB. Is there a good (preferably free) program that I can use with the Lebeca to compress and email with the same efficiency?

[TechZ]

WinXP has a built in software called Windows Movie Maker.

Set the final file size you want and it will compress it into WMV.
OR
Set the options (resolution/bitrate) you want and it gives you an estimate file size.

Start-->All Programs-->Windows Movie Maker

Alternatively you can use a more complex software like VirtualDub and compress the video to AVI format using DivX/Xvid codec.

[Magill]

Thanks TechZ. I forgot all about movie maker. A great solution. I just recorded 30s of video to a file of about 1.5Mb. Perfect. I like, too, that there are no ads tied to it. The Logitech software has links to Yahoo Chat and a bunch of other stuff that I'm just not interested in. Thanks again.

KM

[kevin1312]

Hey you all. When i put files into windows Movie Maker it is breaking the vid into several different chunks. Is there no way to send 5 minute vids in one email and in one segment?

[Train]

Best bet, upload to website and send a link. There are sever sites for that and if your ISP is like mine, open your free website and post it there.