compressing wmvs

could someone please tell me the best way to compress a wmv file. thanks

 

>> could someone please tell me the best way to compress a wmv file. thanks gidddd <<

If you mean "compress for storage" or backup; you could try any decent freeware zip program (7-Zip and ZipGenius are both pretty good and can be found on this site).

However, if you actually mean "compress" and then play the compressed file; unfortunately, WMV is already just about as compressed as it can possibly be. That is, unless you're willing to go to a smaller resolution (x by y) and/or lower frame rate, which isn't actually likely to get much smaller (without becoming totally unwatchable).
Windows Movie Maker will let you further compress any large WMV file. You can import the WMV file that is oversized, choose "Save to My Computer" and choose a lower sampling rate (512 kbps at 320x240 for instance is a good size). This can significantly reduce the filesize of the video, but at the same time; the result can be sacrificing overall quality. If you try this make sure that you try it with a "copy" and not the original files.

Sometimes WMV files can be of very high quality, providing that they a high bit rate. Others can have a very low bit rate, with correspondingly much worse quality (but of course much smaller files). Therefore, I'm afraid that there's probably no way to accomplish this without encountering severe "playback quality" issues.

However if you're looking for more control over compression of wmv's, you might want to have a look at Windows Media Encoder 9, which I believe; is still a freebie over at the M/S link listed above.

Note: My best advice for you would be to either install a second interior (or exterior hard) drive and store these files there.

 

ok thanks for the advice. i will try some of the things you suggested