Jane Talks Tech!

Welcome back to part 3 of my foray into the Ubuntu/Linux system. To recap:...

In my blogging life, I've had the good fortune of having access to tools such as TechSmith's Snagit and Camtasia Studio. The video output from these two utilities is manageable i.e. under 20MBs and possibly already compressed. Those file sizes (dependent on the length of the video) are manageable and are webserver-friendly i.e. a couple of files can be hosted. Conversion of these files is also easier and several tools (free and paid) are available to perform these tasks (Quicktime 7 Pro, Windows Media Encoder 9 Series, Microsoft Expression 2 Encoder, Handbrake, etc). I have actually used all 4 programs listed for a variety of tasks including compression (using MS Expression 2 Encoder to compress large .wmv files generated from screen captures), conversion (Quicktime 7 Pro, Windows Media 9 Encoder and Handbrake). So, I am not completely unfamiliar with working with video files. However, I ran into trouble when I encountered file sizes that ranged from 300Mb - 900Mbs in size.

Last week, I recorded some videos using Sony's HD HandyCam and the file sizes ranged from 300MBs to 900MBs in size. At first, I did not think I would run into any problems because the file format was mpg. I was dead wrong. Right off the bat, Microsoft Expression 2 Encoder and Quicktime 7 Pro did not help me because they could not open/convert mpg files. I guess I should have read the manual (RTFM) because Quicktime Pro does have the capability, but needs a separate add-on (MPEG-2 Playback Component) to be purchased (for $19.99). Microsoft Expression Encoder failed with error code 0x80131537 and was generally a little unhelpful in deciphering if it just couldn't open mpg files or if my file was corrupt (which it wasn't). I'm not even going to pretend that I'm knowledgeable about the powerful abilities of Microsoft Expression Encoder 2, but this article by Ben Waggoner did justice to the power of this tool. (Back to my story), I knew I was in trouble, but I didn't despair yet. I turned to Handbrake which I'd used to handle smaller files. I started the conversion and let it run. I came back after ~ 1 hr and found that my laptop had the dreaded blue screen of death (BSOD). Wow. This simple task of compressing my large video files was rapidly turning into a huge pain in the butt. Read More »