How do I use xvid?

Question

I just downloaded the xvid codec thing because I need a video converter to make the files smaller. Only problem is, its all sorta complex for me and I dont understand what I need to do. Can anyone walk me through on how to use XviD to convert my video files?

Answer 1

You don't use XVID itself. XVID by itself is a codec. It's a background file that gets called by various programs, but you don't use it by itself. There is no XVID converter or such.

There is no magical way to make a video file smaller. Generally, there are four ways

1) Chop length, the obvious solution, does not affect quality of video in general (of what's left), usually quite fast

2) Reduce resolution, does affect quality of video, requires re-encoding the entire clip, thus takes massive amount of time

3) Reduce encoding bitrate, does affect quality of video, requires re-encoding the entire clip, takes massive amount of time, but allows finer adjustments

4) Use a different codec. Different codecs are good for different types of video data. RealMedia is especially good for anime and such, while DIVX/XVID are okay for general purpose video. DIVX/XVID are considered MPEG4 derivatives and thus compress a lot better than MPEG2 (used in DVD). No guarantee that you'll actually save space, and re-encoding usually makes the resulting video worse. And there's a bazillion different settings in the individual codecs to overwhelm most people.

I am afraid there is no short answer to your problem.