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I have a 5 minute avi video that's 3 GB in size. What's the best method to encode my video? What free software should I use?

I'm using Windows XP and the current format is .avi.

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To increase the chance of getting helpful answers, you need to give a few more details in your question. What format is the video if you know? What sort of format do you want it in at the end? Is there a target file size? Do you need it to play on any particular device? What operating system are you using? – David Spillett Feb 1 '10 at 10:12
I'm using Windows XP and the current format is .avi. DIVX encoding will be ok I think. – user16383 Feb 1 '10 at 10:34
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2 Answers

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The two most powerful video encoders are FFMpeg and Mencoder (which is part of MPlayer). Both support converting to and from almost every codec around.

Both are open source, free and run everywhere (Linux, Windows, MacOS, BSD*)

They are command line tools, and hence can be a little complex, but they will let you specify exactly what you want. If you Google though there are plenty of GUI front ends for both tools for whatever operating system you are using.

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Just to give a link to a specific gui that I really like and use all the time. WinFF winff.org – Dennis Feb 1 '10 at 14:43
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up vote 2 down vote

SUPER is a good front-end for FFMpeg, which will convert the video.

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