I just got a new webcam and I want to start making youtube videos but when it records the output size is insane. It needs 200mb for every min of recording and the quality is only 320x240 at 30fps (avi). The software i'm using only allows for the files to be saved as avi and I was wondering how can I reduce the output size? I have known videos to be 2 hours long that only take up 700mb at a much higher quality also in avi format. How can I reduce the size so it is suitable for uploading? Thanks

It's my understanding that youtube.com provides information on the website as to the correct format for uploading videos. My experience is that all the videos there are Flash movies (.flv), so you would need to get a video converter which will convert .avi video to .flv video. I think the 320x240 resolution would be okay. You will find resulting .flv video will be about an order of magnitude smaller in file size from the source .avi. AVI files are inherently large because they are a made from a series of lossless bitmap images. Just take a bitmap image and convert it to a JPEG image and look at the huge difference in file size. But, the bitmap is uncompressed and "lossless" and the JPEG is compressed and "lossy". Because of this, your statement, "I have known videos to be 2 hours long that only take up 700mb at a much higher quality also in avi format." sounds totally unbelieveable. A 2 hour video in standard DVD format is around 4.8GB. If you converted that to an AVI video it would be, at least, 10 times that size.

pyrolitic: If you converted that to an AVI video it would be, at least, 10 times that size. AVI is nothing more than a video container. It has nothing to do with the video or audio compression you use. Jman4157: There are many programs out there that'll help you transcode video. In general, the easier programs cost, while the free programs have a learning curve.

Pyrolitic was refering to the OLD original AVI that, like Razor mentioned, is not really practical anymore because of the immense amount of hard drive space it uses. A few of the newer and more practical AVI formats are MPEG4, DIVX, XVId. A good place to go for video information is: http://www.videohelp.com/ But, like Pyrolitic suggested, go to youtube and check their suggestions for recording.