Thread: Shrink and burn your movies

Downloading and installing
Ashampoo has many utilities available for download on a trial basis. The full versions of the same, can later be purchased from the application's website. To download the trial version of Ashampoo's Movie Shrink & Burn 2:

Once you have completed the installation process, a dialog box will appear on your screen with information about the trial version. Click 'Continue the trial'.

Shrinking your movies
One of the main aims of the application is to shrink your movies to a size and format that is compatible with your CD, DVD, PDA, etc. Here are some easy steps to convert you video to another format by specifying the file size.

Once you have launched the application, you will see the main page that contains various options for burning and creating movie files. In this instance we will shrink/ convert a file from your hard drive to another format so that it can be copied on a 4.7 GB DVD.

Place your mouse on 'Create movie files for the PC' and select 'MPEG-4 AVI files (.avi)'.

The 'Step 1: Select Files' dialog box will appear on the screen. Enter the 'Target' size in terms of Megabytes. For instance, since we are using a 4.7 GB DVD we will enter 4,500.

Keep the 'Allow it to be exceeded by' value as '0'.

NOTE: 'Split files at size' is useful if you want to save a large file as smaller videos.

Click the 'Add files' button.

Each video will be scanned individually and will be added to the grid. In this example we have added three video files of different quality and formats.

Click 'Next'.

Click 'OK' on the 'Automatic splitting may appear' dialog box that appears on the screen.

Select the location where you want to save the converted files by clicking one of the checkboxes.



Click 'Start'.

The conversion process will commence. Each file will be treated individually. The overall progress of the operation will be displayed on the progress bar.

NOTE: Once the process begins, the time estimated and the actual time elapsed is displayed. You can also check the file by clicking the 'Open destination folder' button.

Click 'Return to Start Screen' to proceed with the next step.

NOTE: After the conversion is completed, the new file will be saved in the folder that you had selected before the conversion process. This file will be saved with the same name as that of the original, but will have the AVI file format.

Burn the compressed videos to a DVD

Now that the videos are compressed, we will compile these videos into a single DVD. This will put the files through another chain of conversion that will reduce their size even further without compromising much on quality.

On the Start screen, hover your mouse over 'Burn movie CDs for DVD players' and click 'CD' for 'DivX' compatible 'DVD players' on the side tray that opens.

Select the movie files that have to be burnt.

On next page, enter the name of the CD. Make sure its not more that 16 characters.

Select the 'Write speed'.

Click 'Start'.

The burn process will commence right away. To abort the process midway, click 'Cancel'.

NOTE: Although you have an option of canceling the burn process for a CD or a DVD midway, it is not advisable that you do so as it may render your disk useless for writing data later.