Compress Videos to smallest size

Okay..A video is nothing but a series of still images moving in fast motion such that they appear to be moving.I mean a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.Frame rate, the number of still pictures per unit of time of video,ranges from PAL (Europe, Asia, Australia, etc.) and SECAM (France, Russia, parts of Africa etc.) standards specify 25 frame/s, while NTSC (USA, Canada, Japan, etc.) specifies 29.97 frame/s.The minimum frame rate to achieve the illusion of a moving image is about 15 frames per second or the video will be too jerky and you will be a dead jerk.

TERMINOLOGY 

• BITRATE/Datarate- The parameter of quality of Video,Higher Bitrate,greater size and gr8 quality.Reverse is ALSO true !


• FPS - Nopes..its not FIRST PERSON SHOOTER (Sorry gamers :P) Its Frames per second.Simply changing from 30 fps to 24 fps could result in as much as 20 percent file size reduction!It's better to choose a slightly lower, 'round-number' frame-rate in most cases, such as 24.0, or 25.0.


• CBR - Constant Bitrate.Variable Bitrate in compression leads to high quality audio/video with less file size.


• VBR - Variable Bitrate.Variable Bitrate in audio compression leads to less high quality audio as compared to VBR.Its Used for streaming purposes.


• MP1/2/4 or MPEG1/MPEG2/MPEG4 - A video format developed by Motion Pictures Experts Group and Hence the name.MPEG 1 was the first in series allowing for video playback.MPEG2 allows DVD quality and MPEG4 aims at steaming internet media and High compression technique.


• AVI - Audio Video Interleaved.One of the oldest formats available,It enjoys itself in new incarnations as DIVX and XVID.Its a shell in which other techniques/compression/encoding methods -are worked out.


• High Definition- Very high bitrate media used for home/personal viewing.

FORMATS





Due to popularization of video,flurry of video formats have flodded the market.But still the most popular ones remain WMV,AVI,MPEG1/2/4,DIVX,XVID,H.264,FLV,RMV,QUICKTIME and More...

Audio formats include MPEG3,Ogg,AC3,WMA,WAV,RM and many more..

Then comes the DVD and High Defination Media,Encoded at much high bitrate



TOOLS



The List is long..and You might not want everyone of them :) To get them,just Google the name.They are widely recognized .

WARNING

=======

[VIDEO ENCODERS/DECODERS ARE SYSTEM/MEMORY HOGS !!! SINCE ITS A VERY INTENSIVE AND TIME CONSUMING PROCESS,YOU MIGHT WANT TO FINISH IT ASAP]

• NERO - Available like booze and (almost) free. Make it enterprise (if u have not one already) and use NERO VISION to squeeze it out.Also supports editing.


• Avid - Professionals Use it...nice interface..but still costly.supports editing.


• IMTOO MPEG ENCODER - Terrific performance,supports exhaustive list of formats.Noobs and Newbie's,do yourself a favor and just stick to it.It will deliver almost everything you want (except editing).


• FFDSHOW - A collection of collective codecs.Use command line (if you like) to encode videos,or just watch/decode videos using it. It comes free with K-Lite mega codec pack :)


• VIRTUAl Dub - Free,fantastic and supports everything.But you might need to brainstorm for using it.supports editing and a lot of stuff !! Highly recommended for Geeks .


• AC3DEC - Used to decode AC3 audio files.Most of DVD's use this audio compression method.Get its GUI program to get the best out of it.


• FLASKMPEG - used to rip dvd's..well you have plenty of choices out there...

COMPRESSION

"SPEED VS QUALITY"

Compress using any format you want,full frames of even a 10 minute footage will eat up a lot of disk space in your PC.So..some of optimisation measures you can take to compress videos -

• Choose a good codec like DIVX/XVID,MPEG4 or WMV.


• When Aiming for MAXIMUM compression with MINIMUM quality loss,So just choosing the compressor is NOT ENOUGH..tweak accordingly bitrates (lower for low quality small file size and higher for more quality LARGE file size)


• If a larger video is shrunk to 320x240 or similar size, the quality will be MUCH HIGHER than by simply capturing the same video at 320x240.Shrinking the frame size from say 640x480 to say 320x240,will often result in about the same picture quality as the original 640x480 video,but the new 320x240 file will probably be much much smaller.


• Crop the video to get small frame size.


• Use low bitrate audio to get small size video.


• USE NO AUDIO for silent tutorials.


• Frame rate can drastically affect filesize.

My Setting for Internet publishing/Mobile phones (low end net connection) -

• CODEC - MPEG4


• VIDEO BITRATE - 128/160 KBPS


• AUDIO BITRATE (if any) - 32/48/64 KBPS


• FRAME RATE - 15/24/25/30 FPS (choose your pick :P )


• VIDEO SIZE - 320 X 240 for internet,176 X 144 for mobile phones

I use SNAG-IT 8 for as my screen capture program



DVD-RIP





FOR COMPRESSING 4 GB VIDEO MOVIE [Assuming you have .VOB files ready]





Section A for NOOBS





TOOL USED- IMTOO MPEG ENCODER

1. open IMTOO.


2. Select Movie File.


3. Select video size from menu.For DVD quality,choose 720 X 480.


4. Set Birate to 700-900 KBPS.


5. Set Framerate to 25 FPS.


6. Set aspect as you wish.


7. Set Audio Codec to MP3,Audio bitrate to 160 KBPS/192 KBPS


8.  Set Audio sample rate to 44100 Hz


9. Hit Encode and leave the PC alone for encoding of file.

Section B for GEEKS OUT THERE :D





TOOL USED - VIRTUAL DUB,AC3DEC,FLASKMPEG

*PLACE ALL .VOB FILES AT SAME FOLDER !

[1]. open FlaskMPEG to convert the VOB video files,select video file,Choose the type of codec (compressor/decompressor) you want to use generally that will be DivX.DIVX LOW MOTION is best for almost all movies and for those which have NO ACTION and Fast-Motion is only good when almost the entire movie is very fast paced like Terminator 2 or that of Final Fantasy - Advent Children..you get the idea.. and set bitrate to 900 KBPS,frame rate to 24/25 KBPS,choose output location,set process priority to high and hit encode and STAY AWAY FROM YOUR PC !!! After a looooooong time,you will have a single AVI file.

[2]. Put AC3DEC.exe in UR VOB FILE folder,run command prompt, and type-

ac3dec [FILENAME1.VOB] -allvobs -out [filename2.WAV]

NOTE -

* ac3dec is the name of the application being run -- you can also write "ac3dec.exe", with the identical effect

* FILENAME1 is the name of the first .vob file -- in this case 'vts_01_1'

* FILENAME2 is the name of the .wav file you are going to create -- you chose 'MI3Sound'

* -allvobs means to include all .vob files in the folder sequentially (as a single logical file)

* -out means you want to specify the name and path of the output file

Using the example above you will type this in prompt:

C:\MI3> ac3dec vts_01_1.vob -allvobs -out c:\windows\desktop\MI3.wav

Press Enter and the saving process will begin. After it finishes,close command prompt.You will have a file named MI3.wav on your desktop (approx 1GB).



[PS: GUI VERSION OWNERS WILL HAVE LESS HASSLES..BUT AFTER ALL THIS SECTION IS FOR GEEKS :P]

[3]. open Virtual Dub and select Movie File.Choose "Direct Stream Copy" from VIDEO menu.

[4]. Open the audio WAV file which was created by going to the AUDIO menu, and choosing "Use WAV file". Select the .wav file. Choose "Full Processing Mode" under Audio menu.

[5]. Then Choose "Compressor", choose the MP3 codec,Set Audio quality to 160 KBPS for high quality and 192 KBPS for Very High quality audio.

[6]. Then set 24.000 or 25.000 FPS from Frame rate option in video menu.

[7]. Choose "FILTERS" in the VIDEO menu and Add filters you want one at a time (if you wish).Configure it and use it accordingly.

[8]. Hit encode and in 25 to 50 minutes you will have your rip ready :)



NOTE : You can test how good the compression is so far, by compressing the resulting video file into a RAR file.Two Cases arise then -

1. If there is less than 5% compression,the compression is probably about as good as it will get.


2. If there is more than 5% compression,the audio and/or video can probably be compressed even further.h.264 or xvid/DIVX are your best bets for smallest file size at any given quality. Just keep in mind that eah has various quality settings that effect the compression, and thus the output size. You could use the same program to convert to each, but if the default settings are different,your output file size testing would be skewed.

FINDING SOFTWARE



DVD-Ripping software of all kinds can be gotten at www.divx-digest.com

www.download.com for all different kinds of programs

Guide to Usenet | Usenet – download faster than torrents | Fastest download speeds

I am pretty much bombarded with questions regarding Usenet in my seminars and on my email, so I thought why not to cover a guide over it. Usenet is the granddaddy of networks, yep, I said it. You might flame me by citing Arpanet and some other primitive networks, but then again, it was Usenet which prevailed massively before the modern Internet and was the hip thing which allowed to share binary files,movies (even your fantasy p**n stuff ), games and a lot more. Basically Usenet was a kind of BBS where the first generation of geeks shred what they had, in the 80’s, someone came with an idea of sharing binary files (read:your standard files) over Usenet and there we go, it became a phenomenon. Most people joined Usenet so as to get access to those files and trust me; it was a phenomenon to witness.



Usenet is based on decentralized servers which share content with each other over UUCP protocol, and has content arranged in a hierarchical manner.

• Enough theory, lets get on to some interesting facts (in context with torrent junkies and conspiracy theories :P ):


• Usenet is faster than the fastest of Torrent Trackers, BLAZING fast speeds,and I mean it.


• Usenet has a lot more data categorized there to be picked by the worthy then your best Torrent tracker can ever get.


• No Seeding, No Uploading, Instant Speeds ! It’s a wonderland for 24X7 downloaders.


• Usenet is dying, and whatever is left of it, is quite different from what it originally was.


• Usenet is dying because government can’t control it.

Ridiculously , we all have heard of Usenet , but as far as I know people, nobody uses it. I got my first slice of it in 2007 and since then, I have loved every bit of it. It’s an outstanding archive of data which you may not find over Internet, yep, it’s that good.

The primary reason Usenet is not so popular because people just don’t want to use their heads. They just want a point-click-download option to download their files. As compared to traditional downloading and torrents, Usenet is a bit different to setup, and I will tell you how to set it up, really.



Step 1 - Choose Your Usenet Service

Long ago, ISP’s hosted Usenet binaries and provided access to Usenet and news servers. They were happy with people connecting and subscribing to these services and infact actually supported by giving long retention time (the time for which a file is hosted over a Usenet server) to the binaries. But then the advances in technology gave people amazing speeds and faster broadband connections and they literally abused by downloading like there was no tomorrow. Further the government was pissed off by the amount of illegal data (read:child p**n and sm*t) hosted there and decided to shut it off, although not fully successful, the ISP responded by putting bandwidth constraints , restricted content and a lot of weird measures.

Anyways, to get to the mother load of the downloading, you need access to the alt.binaries content and for that, you need to buy access. Really Sorry! But Usenet isn't a p2p and you have to pay for bandwidth and storage it if you want to use it. The best news? for a meager 15$ per month you get a month for unlimited, unthrottled access. Okay, it might be a lot for you, but if you want to have a Usenet experience, you can have a free trial at Usenet providers like GigaNews or Astraweb. Don't forget to look at -

• The retention time.(300 days +)


• The number of parallel connections (more connections, more speed, but it stops meaning anything unless you are on a 100Mb pipe)


• Download limits (amount of data you can download..obviously)

Step 2 - Choose your Client

Again, just like you use utorrent / xunlei to download your torrents, you need a client to download yor files through Usenet. Someties you may have noticed a torrent file which is broken into 20 MB rar files each, probably that file has been downloaded from Usenet and uploaded to torrent, as in Usenet a file can not be uploaded beyond a fixed size, that too in a compressed form. The real trouble starts to download and organize those files, but fear not, thats what are Usenet clients for; they download and join those compressed files into one automatically. My favorite one is SABnzbd, and I will be covering the rest of guide taking it in view. Like torrent files (.tor), in Usenet NZB files are used to point out and download files, your client will be able to figure it out.



Download SABnzbd

Run the program and SABnzbd will open in a browser window.



Now click on “Config” tab and click on “servers”

 

Enter the server settings your Usenet provider gave you after signup (Astraweb's at left). Staying in the "Config" page, click "Folders"



Select the folder where you want to download files and the temporary files folder (pretty standard stuff) .Also choose a "Watched" folder where the NZB files will be placed and SABnzbd will know what you want it to download. Make it a place that's easy for you to save to, from a browser.

Once done, you are ready to explore Usenet.

Step 3 – Downloading files

“Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea- massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it”

- Gene Spafford

Yep..Usenet is an incomprehensible mess. Thats why they created search engines like Newzbin (paid and invite only), NZB.org, Binsearch, Newsleach to find your files using NZB format and to download it. Think of it like torrent search engine where you find your favorite files.

Once you find your NZB, download it to the your "Watch" directory and SABnzbd will take care of it . Or you can download it wherever you want, and add it manually to SABnzbd by going to "Add File". Once done, you will have something like this -



It's working! And yes, it's really going that fast.

But if If it's not downloading, you may need to check your server settings as some ISPs block the default port, 119. WOrry not, you can use another one that your provider supports. 8080,1818 are some common ones.

Once downloaded, it will automatically be joined and served with chilled beer (just kidding)

Thats Usenet :)

Enjoy…