movies in VN - file format question

[fleet]

When I first tried to insert a movie in a VN I used AVI format, but changed to animated GIF format to reduce overall size of the VN. Now I'm using wmv format for movies, which is much smaller. Is there another format that compresses the video even more?

I use Novelty software for my VNs (if that makes any difference).

[ScottySeng]

AVI is a very high quality but large format.

The format it's self doesn't matter as much as how the compression is added.

When you convert video, there should be a setting for how many megabytes per second is used. The lower the number, the smaller the video will be.
Also, using a variable bit rate should lower the size as well.

WMV is one of the smallest formats that I know of.

[AxemRed]

AVI is a very high quality but large format.

AVI isn't a video codec.

[Aileo]

I usually find that mkv (matroska video) files tend to have a very good balance between high quality and small files sizes, but I don't think many people have the proper codecs to run them on their PCs. When I'm encoding video though, I usually convert into a h.264 mp4 container.

The quality of your vid is going to be determined by the bitrate of the video. The resolution and length of the video matters too, so a higher quality video needs a higher bitrate so the video doesn't pixelate. Truth be told, I just set the video to encode by the end file size that I want it to be. I wish I could have been more helpful. :/

[Anima]

mkv is not a codec either, it's a container. Most of the time with a h.264 encode, but that's what it gets used for most of the time, not a technical specification.
There is more to encoding then just choosing the bit rate and file format, but for that you should look for tutorials on the web.

[fleet]

@ScottySeng and Aileo,
Thanks for the helpful advice. Using wmv files converted with Windows Movie Maker I was able to reduce the size of one of my VNs from over 60MB to just over 20MB.
Very respectfully,
fleet

[JDarryl]

Either WMV with proper settings or the H.264 codec I believe, can lead to small sizes with nice quality. The best thing would be to play around a little with the settings.