Video Exchange

[Alberto Larios-Saavedra]

I'm sure this is a pretty dumb question, but I've never done this, so here I go. What kind of procedure/software would I need to send/receive video files via email. What kind of issues regarding compression would I face.

I need to send a video file that's as uncompressed as possible.

 

Thanks.

[Mike Lary]

I'm sure this is a pretty dumb question, but I've never done this, so here I go.  What kind of procedure/software would I need to send/receive video files via email.  What kind of issues regarding compression would I face. 

I need to send a video file that's as uncompressed as possible.

 

Thanks.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You do not need specialized software for sending or receving video files via email. They can be sent as attachments. As long as they are in a format (mpeg, etc) that is supported by your video player (Quicktime, etc.) they can be viewed.

 

To compress video, you can use Avid, Premier, Quicktime Pro, or a slew of other applications. Uncompressed video is huge. The more you are willing to sacrifice size and quality by compressing the video, the smaller the file will be. Some codecs (selectable in the compression settings) create better images and smaller file sizes than others and some are better with certain types of content than others (animation, video) - check the software documentation for explanations. Unless you have very expensive compression software, you'll probably need to sacrifice size and/or image quality significantly to get the file small enough to send via email unless the duration is very short. The best way to figure out what will work best is to export some compressed films (sometimes the export window will tell you the estimated file size before you export) and view the results to see what is satisfactory for you / your client. I like Sorenson compression from Quicktime Pro for movies 320 pixels wide.