Free Advice: You Get What You Pay For

We are finally getting a dedicated digital camera (so far have been content with Still function on Digital camcorder)., but which one? We were all excited about the new Sony T1 and about to hand over the dosh when we checked on the file size of the mpegs. It records 3 sizes of mpeg - thumbnail, 640x480 and a huge VX fine quality. The 640x480 needed 2.8MB for 7 seconds on play - not great for email attachments, which is what we want to do. We will probably have to go for the 3.2 megapixel cybershot instead as it does 320x240 which is a reasonable size. We already haev a JVC camcorder that does its own JLip files - 220K for about 15 secs of film for email attachments, but the viewing size is small (like a thumbnail). We were hoping to have something about the size of the standard email joke mpeg..... How do we do this? Is there anyway to further compress mpegs from 640 to 320 size when needed??

Why is nothing simple? What camera do you use - I like the quality of the pics on your blog!

Please help. oh techno guru....

Sally

---

Yo Sally,

How great to hear from you! This response will be on the house as international consulting rates are astronomical! Actually, I don't have any revelations for you but go with the highest quality camera as possible. You can easy downgrade video and images with the use of software. (It's much easier to fall than it is to climb.) I'll just give you some free, Microsoft links that will probably take a fortnight to download from the Emirates.

Are you running XP? Are you the even slightly interested in arranging clips and creating titles? Soon I must buy a video capture card to grab the analog from old camcorder tapes. Those sounds and images deserve to sit on DVD media. One advantage of going with the following easy program is that it provides a variety of output options. You could output as tiny, squeezed files for emailing or eventual output to a DVD burner.

Windows Movie Maker 2 Download

If you're simply interested in converting your files, then you might find the encoder useful. It can be used for audio only, or video. I will use this program to create streaming versions of music files. (What song title will match THIS topic, Dennis wonders out loud.)

Windows Media Encoder 9 Series Download

My Olympus is 4 megapixel. I honestly think that is the minimum you should buy if you will ever wish to have your files sent to a photo-finisher for enlargements. I always shoot in hi-res and save to the hard disk. Another must have for digital camera owners is an XP PowerTool called the Image Resizer. This program lets you turn any photo resolution into these formats: 1) small (640 X 480) 2) medium (800 X 600) and 3) large (1024 X 768). You will be able to find it on the following page:

Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP

This tool does a good job 'downverting' to a 640 X 480 image, but unfortunately, my blog requires 512 X 384, so I need to resize further. That's why I feel the photos here look quite fuzzy.

Do let's hear from you more often. The kids must be nearly ready to drive, aren't they? : -)

For now,
Dennis