I have a short promotional video that I created in iMovie 4. It runs approximately 6 1/2 minutes long. Someone wants to post my video on their website and I am looking for advice as to the best format to convert it to for use on the web.

When I look at the "Share" options in iMovie, the smallest file size is estimated at about 10 mb if I set it for e-mail. That's still bigger than I want it to be. I have two questions. First, how small can I compress it and still have it look decent?

Second, what format should I use? If using a QuickTime format is not best, what program (free!) can I use to convert it to another format.

Thanks,
Michael

Honestly, I would just upload it to youtube (or google video , if it's > 10mins).

You could do an .flv that plays inside a self-contained .swf to get smaller than 10mb, depending on how large you want the resolution. I use Sorenson Squeeze, but it's not free. [www.sorensonmedia.com]

A few weeks ago I ran a video through all the recommended processing - with iMovie, formatting it for the web. It worked.

Then yesterday, I signed up for youtube, uploaded the video, got the confirmation from youtube, and pasted the html into a web page, uploaded the page, all in about 10 minutes.

YouTube rocks.

Super8

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YouTube video looks like crap.

Use QuickTime, H.264 preferably.

I'd save it from iMovie at high quality and then recompress to DivX using ffmpeg.

Experiment with ffmpeg's output settings to get the results that you feel make the best compromise between size and quality.

I might start by scaling it 50% down from its original dimensions, dropping the framerate to 15fps and dropping the bitrate to 800kbps. Using that as a reference, you might want to increase the framerate a nudge or you might feel comfortable dropping the bitrate even more.

Play.

Quote
MacMagus
I'd save it from iMovie at high quality and then recompress to DivX using ffmpeg.

Experiment with ffmpeg's output settings to get the results that you feel make the best compromise between size and quality.

I might start by scaling it 50% down from its original dimensions, dropping the framerate to 15fps and dropping the bitrate to 800kbps. Using that as a reference, you might want to increase the framerate a nudge or you might feel comfortable dropping the bitrate even more.

Play.

Thanks for the input. I'll give it a try.