NextPreviousHomeWhy are the AVI movies so large?

Dick | 15 years ago | 9 comments | 2,856 views

When I save a 10 second movie the AVI is about 140Mb: why so large? If I convert it to WMV it is only about 1Mb.




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Which compression codec are you using?

michiel, 15 years ago


Michiel, How do I find out which codec I'm using?

Dick, 15 years ago

The fact that you don't know probably means that you do not use compression. That could explain the file size.

When you select COMPRESSED AVI in the FILE / EXPORT AS MOVIE dialog, a dialog is presented in which you can select a compression codec (encoder filter).

michiel, 15 years ago


I think what Dick means is he is using the uncompressed avi setting. A 10 second uncompressed avi should be around 36MB. That's based on 13GB per hour, which is 216MB per minute or 36MB per 10 seconds.

I just made a medium quality, uncompressed 10 second long avi in BT, 640x480, progressive, and it was 263MB. Using interlaced, which BT doesn't recommend, it was still 131MB.

That's 3-1/2 to 7 times larger than one would expect.

kf_daddy, 15 years ago

I generally use the "Huffy" codec as a storage format for animations. This is a lossless format for video. Divx and wmv are lossy, meaning you loose data if you use them to encode the file, but the files are much smaller - the huffy files are larger than divx, but you don't lose any data.

Per, 15 years ago

Btw, you get download it here:

neuron2.net...

Per, 15 years ago

Uncompressed without transparency is 3 bytes per pixel: one byte for red, one for green and one for blue. So a 10 second, 30 frames per second 640 x 480 animation results in an AVI file with a size of:

(10 x 30 x 3 x 640 x 480 ) / (1024 x 1024) = 263 MB

I've just created a test animation and was happy to find out that the file was exactly 263 MB, the same result as kf_daddy!

When using Huffyuv, the file was 67 MB

En when using DivX, it was reduced to only 1 MB!!!

michiel, 15 years ago


BluffTitler's quality setting (set with the menu items SETTINGS / LOW, MEDIUM and HIGH QUALITY) has no effect on the file size.

Using interlacing halves the file size because every 2 successive frames are saved as a single interlaced frame. This is why kf_daddy's 263 MB AVI is reduced to 131 MB when using interlacing because 263 x 0.5 = 131

michiel, 15 years ago


Thanks to all. I have installed Huffy and will give it a try.

Dick, 15 years ago

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