How to Make a Video From a Camera Small Enough to Email
With a digital camera you can easily take home videos to capture those special memories. Sending them to friends and family can be more difficult, however, as the size of video files generally prohibits them from being easily e-mailed. With a file compression program you can greatly reduce the size of any video file for transmission.
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Instructions
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Connect a USB cable from your digital video camera to the USB port on your computer. Use an adapter to convert the type of output jack your camera has to a USB connector if you have a standard video camera that lacks digital capabilities. Click on "Open a folder to view files," when a new window pops up on your screen asking what action you want to take.
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Click on the video file that you want to send in an e-mail and drag it onto your desktop or into a different folder where you want it to be saved. Open your web browser and navigate to a website that offers a compression software such as "WinZip" or "Coffee Cup" (see Resources below).
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Click on the download link and then click on "Save File" if your web browser asks you what action you want to take. Wait for the file to finish downloading and then navigate to the folder on your computer where your downloaded files are saved. Double-click on the file and then follow the instructions that show up on your screen to install the software.
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Open the compression software that you installed by double-clicking on the icon that appeared on your desktop. Click on the option to compress a new file and then choose the location where you placed your video file. Click on "Next" and then choose the option for the highest level of compression. Click on the option to start the compression process.
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Wait for the file to finish compressing and then navigate to the folder where the new file was created. Right-click on it and then choose "Properties" to see what the file size is. Send the file by opening your e-mail client, choosing the option to create a new e-mail, and then click on "Add Attachments."
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Tips & Warnings
The size of e-mails that you can send and your recipient can receive will vary depending on the e-mail clients you use and the speed of your internet connection. It's a good rule of thumb however that anything over three or four megabytes will soon take too long to send to be worth your time and your recipient's e-mail client may not accept it anyway.
Choosing the greatest amount of compression in your compressing software will make the file much smaller but it will also take much longer to complete the compressing process. The recipient of your e-mail will also need to have a program such as WinZip or Coffee Cup to extract the compressed file into a format that their computer can read.
Resources
- Photo Credit Sony
