<p>So one school requires you upload files from your computer rather than a Youtube link, but the files can't be any bigger than 250MB. Problem is, the longer concerto is 456MB. It's in .mov, I think. I can open it with various things on my computer: Windows Media, itunes, Windows Movie (or something like that).</p>
<p>Is there a way to compress it into a smaller file while still maintaining the integrity of sound?</p>
<p>I've emailed my oldest son, who does some music recording (3000 miles away), but thought I'd ask here, as well, since y'all have been <em>so</em> helpful!</p>
<p>I’m not a tech person (hopefully one will weigh in), but this is a common situation and an easy fix. You can import the file into the video editing software program you have – IMovie or windows moviemaker can even work-- and when you go to produce or output the file, there will be options for file type and size. There are also free video converter programs on line (I use avs video converter, which isn’t free but is inexpensive), and that’s as easy or easier than using your editing program. The only thing is to check the resulting file carefully because I have noticed that converting one file type to another can sometimes cause some subtle audio/video syncing issues; in that case, simply convert to another file type. In any event, you should probably be able to stick with a .mov file (just a smaller size .mov).</p>
<p>Do they specify the format they want the video in? I do remember having this problem in the past and am trying to remember how we solved it. Lots of googling was involved.</p>
<p>Here are some slideroom instructions that I just found:</p>
<p>If you do not have access to video production software or do not wish to use it, you can use MPEG Streamclip . You can then open your video in MPEG Streamclip and from the “File Menu”, select “Export MPEG-4…”. The options as they are by default should compress the video enough, so you can simply click the “Make MP4” button (or press return). If you find that the file is too compressed or not small enough once it is done, the “Quality” slider on the top of the options screen will allow you to make it larger or smaller to get the proper ratio of quality and size.</p>
<p>@StringPop , thank you for the suggestion. My son can take a look at both of these methods and see if he can get one to work. The biggest thing is not to compromise the sound quality.</p>
<p>There are a lot of free programs and sites that do conversions and most of them are pretty good. The most important thing to do is to check the file before you send it. Download it to another computer and watch it all the way through because sometimes the audio and video get out of sync when the clip gets converted. You should always deal with the absolute final product. There might be a little loss in sound or video quality, but the people at the other end are listening to the performance.I think that by now, everyone is used to what music through the internet sounds like. </p>
<p>Whatever you learn doing this won’t be wasted because submitting videos doesn’t stop with school admission.Summer camps want them as well, and there can be some pretty weird requests. My kid applied to a chamber camp last year that required an audio CD be sent. Remember burning music CDs ? I had to go out and buy some blanks and they were pretty hard to find. </p>
<p>I’ve been using it for <em>everything</em>. It can compress your file, change the file extension, etc. I haven’t noticed any huge compromise in sound quality, even when I compressed a 700 MB file down to 20 MB!</p>
<p>In Handbrake, which is very powerful, but not necessarily the most user-friendly, you can actually specify “pass-thru” for the audio, which will leave the sound untouched, but still give you full control for video transcoding with any necessary compression.</p>