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Fred Forsythe
07-29-2009, 04:51 PM
I have an AVI vid file, about 179,000KB in size & 20 minutes in length. I would like to remove all but about 3 minutes of this video, so I can email the short segment to my brother. After some searching, I see the free VirtualDub is recommended, so I dl'd the program. I was able to crop out the 3 minute bit I want to send & save it as a separate .AVI, but the file is 3,500,000KB in size, ~ TWENTY TIMES the size of the original 20 minute file! Does anyone know of a way using VirtualDub or some other program that I can extract the 3 minutes I want & actually end up with a proportionately SMALLER file?

TIA

Fred
Paul Komski
07-30-2009, 03:50 AM
I haven't done a great deal of this sort of stuff but am having to more and more. I have used Windows Movie Maker (comes with WinXP) to pretty good effect. Your .avi clips will be converted to .wmv format and I think that is the only format that can be outputted.

I seem to remember a program called Cut Assistant that was supposed to work in tandem with VirtualDub - but it was some time ago.
Fred Forsythe
07-30-2009, 07:48 PM
As usual Paul, your idea saved the day :) The program you suggested did the trick, and quite intuitively, also (I'm sure if I wanted to spend 6 hours in a training seminar, I could probably figure out how to get VirtuaDub to do the task in question as well... )

Thanks!

Fred
Paul Komski
07-31-2009, 01:40 PM
I had actually been about to do some long-put-off video editing when you posted. It's not something I do a lot of usually so was a bit rusty and couldn't remember the other "freebies" I had used with some success in the past. Over the past day or so I have been catching up and would just like to say that I find GOM Player (http://www.gomlab.com/eng/) to be a really superb Media Player - (It was recommended on BBC's Click and plays just about all formats) - and two utilities from NCH Software really helpful in this area: Prism Video Converter (http://www.nchsoftware.com/prism/plus.html) and VideoPad Video Editor (http://www.nchsoftware.com/videopad/index.html).

If others have other recommendations that would be very useful to know about.