Compressing a large video file?

[Dida]

I recently got a digital camera that can record 720p HD video. The camera saves it in .mov format, using H.264 compression. This results in huge file size, something like 3.5MB/sec. A 20 minute video clip would be 4GB. The video is only 30 fps and the camera only records mono sound. I have downloaded 720p movies and they are around 6-8GB for the whole movie.
Is there something I can do to shrink down the size while not losing too much of the quality?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Avidemux. You open the video and change the video codec from "Copy video" to something else (personally I prefer MPEG-3 ASP Xvid) then open the configure and then do the Video Size (Two Pass). use the calculator to get the video size in relation to total size. it takes a while to encode so go play outside or leave it running overnight. Unless you set it unreasonably low, there's not too much video loss.

http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/

if you dont understand the instructions let me know.

 

[Integral]

I was under the impression that h.264 had better compression rates than xvid? In that if you put an h.264 video stream and an xvid video stream of equal quality into the same container, the h.264 version would be smaller?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I just said that I usually prefer Xvid. he can use h.264 if he wanted. its just that he wants to make a BIG h.264 video into a smaller video.

 

[Dida]

I was under the impression that h.264 had better compression rates than xvid? In that if you put an h.264 video stream and an xvid video stream of equal quality into the same container, the h.264 version would be smaller?

Yeah, but should a 20 minute video clip in 720p be 4GB? I think somehow the file size is way too big. Maybe that compression method is very inefficient or something.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

High bitrate?

Install http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en and load the video into it. then go View > Text and copy and paste it here and I'll see what I can understand from the info.

 

[Aramazd]

Yeah, but should a 20 minute video clip in 720p be 4GB? I think somehow the file size is way too big. Maybe that compression method is very inefficient or something.

Re-encode with a lower bit rate, there isn't anything more efficient than h.264 atm