Digital Video Filter: Running into problems getting a digital video file into a suitable format for YouTube.

August 18, 2006 1:20 PM

Digital Video Filter: Running into problems getting a digital video file into a suitable format for YouTube. Any help appreciated.

With my dad's help, I made a 4 minute digital video that I'd like to get on to YouTube. He thought he would be able to get it on to YouTube, but ultimately couldn't. What I have from him is 2 CDs, one with the file in .avi format and one as a DVD.

Here are my problems....
1. I can't get the .avi file to play. Depending on what computer I use, and what program I use (I've used Windows Media Player, DivX Player, Quicktime), it gives me a different error message, but just doesn't seem to be openable.
2. It is way too big at this point, roughly 800MB.

Is there any way to use the DVD file? Any other suggestions? We put a lot of work into this and it is sort of driving me crazy that we can't get this last step to work.

posted by krudiger to computers & internet (4 comments total)

On my mac I would use handbrake to rip a copy off the dvd. There must be a similar program out there for the os-challenged. There is also, it seems, a beta version of handbrake for windows. Some people have problems getting it to work, so you might google around for other handbrake type programs.
posted by jlowen at 1:44 PM on August 18, 2006

Find G-spot (it's not dirty... it tells you which codec your .avi file is encoded with).

That's probably your first step... verify that you have the appropriate codec to open the file with. 800 MB is not too big at all (although it won't fit onto that CD).

btw: What I have from him is 2 CDs, one with the file in .avi format and one as a DVD. This sentence doesn't make any sense to me. You can't have a DVD on a CD. You could, however, have a file/folder structure of a DVD that is small enough (byte-wise) to fit onto a CD. However, that most likely would not be able to be played in most stand-alone CD players.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 4:38 PM on August 18, 2006

AutoGK should convert the DVD to a xvid (compressed AVI), DVD shrink might help you rip the pretinent parts to something autogk can handle. or you can use windows media encoder to transcode the avi to a .wmv providing it understands it.
posted by psychobum at 9:26 PM on August 18, 2006

Thanks, everyone. I ended up using the handbrake suggestion, although the others are helpful for future reference as well.
posted by krudiger at 1:39 PM on August 21, 2006