How to share LARGE files like videos
With the growth of personal digital cameras and gadget phones many people are using their computers to edit and store lots of photos and videos
Recently I was asked how to share some video files via email as they were too big to go through - here is my answer and some tips that might help
Sending large Files
How big are the files you are sending?
A quick Google (see here) tells me that the Bigpond limit for files is 10mb each - that is pretty small for a video so I am guessing that is your problem
(The asker was using Bigpond obviously)
I suggest you store the video somewhere and then send a link to the file to each person via email
This is an especially good idea if you want to send to more than 1 or 2 people
You can upload to a video site such as YouTube - and you can set to private If you don't want the whole world to see it
Not sure how? Try this
How to upload a video to YouTube
This page highlights the Public versus Private settings at YouTube
There are alternatives sites to YouTube but it is the most popular
Many people also use Facebook for photo and video sharing so if you are a FB user you could use that too
Alternatives
My first suggestion for online file storage, and sharing, is DropBox
I run Dropbox constantly on all my PC's and it automatically synchs and stores a copy of all my documents and other items on each of my computers and "in the cloud"
Files in Dropbox default to private but any file can be shared and it's very easy, you just email an invitation (More details)
There is no limit to file size but a free account comes with 2GB of storage
If you haven't tried Dropbox I highly reccomend it - SIGN UP HERE and you will get an extra 250mb of storage for free - and so will I
If you don't want to 'share' the video but just want to get around the email block then I suggest you just read this excellent site
Labnol - Share large files without email
Depending on your file size (the size of your movie/wmv files) Labnol shows us many options
If you need a recommendation I have used YouSendIt before and it works fine
SO where is the catch?
Whichever method you use it is going to be slow - probably very slow
Just remember that a large file of hundreds of megabytes will take a long time for the recipient to download on slow broadband and won't really work at all with dial-up
And with upload speeds using being at least a quarter of your download speed it is going to take you a long time to upload it as well
Size of the Video
If the large file is indeed a video maybe you could reduce the resolution of the video and therefore maybe the size
WMV is already a pretty compressed format so changing the format/file type probably won't shrink it further but reducing the quality/resolution will
(The asker was sending a WMV)
My current favourite free program for video file conversion is Freemake Video Converter
Not only does it convert between many different file formats for use on devices like ipods, etc
It can also combine multiple video files and burn to dvd and convert between different resolutions and types
And it will upload to YouTube for you too if you like
Just like your photo camera the video camera you use may be taking videos at quite a high resolution - meaning very large files
Experiment a bit and I bet you find a resolution/size that is a good trade-off between a good quality to watch and a smaller size to share
Hope that helps someone but please comment below if you have any questions
