Video Creator - Making Smaller File Sizes

When it comes to the web, fast downloads are a must. This is why you can make a high and low speed version of your movies. It's the low speed (ie dial up) users that are the concern.

When you're making your movies, you can help make smaller file sizes by using less images. Each image you use is another picture to be put in your movies. More Images-->Larger File Sizes. The x5 button is designed to limit the amount of images you use since it skips every five images instead of showing all the in between images. For example the most superficial level of the lower back movie contains 90 pictures that cover from 0-->360 rotation (at x1), but why use all those images. Go to the x5 mode and now you only have 18 images that cover the full 360 of rotation. This saves a lot on file size.

Another trick is if you use an image once in your movie it will be saved just once. If you use that same image over and over again it will still be saved just once. So if you know you're going to be using certain images over and over again, don't worry about increasing your file size, because it won't.

Lets say you were going to explain upper back pain and were only going to show the back area. Before you hit record, rotate your starting image so you see the back, then hit record. This avoids having to record the images as you rotate the movie from the front to the back of the body.

With a little planning you can significantly cut down on file size. For high speed modem users, this doesn't matter, but low speed users will find this much more user friendly.

You can always see your file sizes by clicking the "Access Videos" button in the application and looking in the right hand column (See Retrieving Your Movies). Next to each movie is the file size. The low speed versions are typically one third the file size as the high speed versions. The images and voice are less quality but the same information is conveyed.

Low speed users can view the high speed movies, but will have longer download times.

Just to give you an idea on file size. At 56k which is the maximum dial up speed, it takes about two and a half minutes to download 1 Megabyte. They can start watching the movie while it's downloading however so they can start viewing the movie within a minute after clicking on a link to the movie.

Summary:
Use as few pictures as you need to teach the subject, but at the same time use as many images as you need to teach the subject.