5MB Chairman's Video Size

[B.Collette]

How does first expect us to make a 3 minute widescreen video under 5MB? Unless they really want us to destroy the quality but outside of extreme compression I can't figure how to make it the right size. As an added example my lit class video project was less then 3 minutes, widescreen and it was almost 700 MB in size WITH compression. Has there been any discussion about this at FIRST or does anybody have any other plans for the video? I was looking forward to doing this but I don't want to make it look bad (or do a voiceover powerpoint)

[Rich Kressly]

These official Q&A responses should be of interest to you:
http://forums.usfirst.org/forumdisplay.php?f=1043

We're providing higher quality versions on the cd/dvd with the small version as discussed in one of those responses.

As far as how to compress, try using flv (flash) compression. We used it to get our file size to 4.4 mb. We found that to be the best option for us as we were at least able to retain most of the audio quality.

[Bongle]

I agree that the requirement is a bit tight for a 3 minute video, but not extremely tight. A 2:21 youtube video I just watched was less than 5.5mb (this was normal quality).

The average 2-hour pirated movie is 5.8mb per minute.

As an added example my lit class video project was less then 3 minutes, widescreen and it was almost 700 MB in size WITH compression

Edit: my math was totally wrong, I forgot 30fps. Still, you can do much better than 250mb/minute unless you're doing like 1080p video.

For posterity, here is some math which is now pointless.
Completely uncompressed DVD video data rate:
720 pixels wide
480 pixels high
4 bytes per pixel (1 byte per R, G, and B channels, plus 1 byte for packing)
60 seconds in a minute
EDIT: 30 frames per second
720 * 480 * 4 * 60 * 30 = 2.48gb/minute.

[Rich Kressly]

We wound up manually setting the pixel width and height, maintaining the 16:9 ratio in the specifications. This makes it easy to shrink the overall file size.

[RoboMom]

Robomom's wish list:
A how-to paper that could be distributed to teams trying to do the right thing by submitting, but don't have much resource help with this project would be a great thing.

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by RoboMom

Robomom's wish list:
A how-to paper that could be distributed to teams trying to do the right thing by submitting, but don't have much resource help with this project would be a great thing.

How to would be very hard based on the variability of everyone's editing process and especially software. Covering everything from sequenced Powerpoint slides to edited video through Final Cut Pro (and any producrt in between) and reducing file size would be exceedingly time consuming and very, very long.

[Pat Arnold]

We are struggling with how to meet the video size requirement. Please continue posting suggestions. We've about completed our Chairman's work (Executive Essay & Summary) & have a script, but this video size limit is one complication which leaves me (a non-engineering/ non-technical mentor) clueless. It's good that the video isn't due until our Regional; as soon as the robot build is over our more technically knowledgeable students & mentors will be tapped to help.

[DCA Fan]

I use a program called "Super Video Converter" that's free and can convert and resize videos, albeit a bit slowly.