Ok I have a 30 second animation at 800x600, uncompressed frames AVI, it's 1.2gb, which is too big for youtube, and no sound. I have access to Photoshop CS3 Extended suite for a limited time, but I can't even figure out which app to use. at this point I just want to add 30 seconds of MP3 to the AVI and get the size under 1gb, Hopefully smaller without compression effects (or too many).

AM I way off base, is there better easier to use, or cheaper to purchase. I have access to student pricing for the Creative suite3 or 4, so it's not beyond reach.

 If you have WinXP, then Microsofts free MovieMaker should be able to do the trick:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/updates/moviemaker2.mspx

Attached Link: http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/

http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/

Mazak

When I saw "composting advice" I was going to say that teabags are great, general food waste, but no eggshells or chicken bones. Those things don't compost too well.

But I guess you're not after gardening advice, or you'd be on a different forum ;)

Sorry couldn't resist ...
Richard

 You can actually do quite sophisticated movie editing in PS CS3 Extended - just select "Animation" from the Window menu.  Its really quite advanced and like a small version of After Effects - you can set keyframes and create motion effects with Photoshop tools.  There is a great tutorial on this at the Kelbytraining.com site by Corey Barker called "Photoshop in Motion".  

H.264 is a great compresion method inside Quicktime - and there lots of others that will do the job as well.

Now we are talking. Specific, easy to use advice. So render, as uncompresses avi, edit in CS3 and then encode/compress. I used MS moviemaker and saw my 1.5 gigabyte movie shrink to 25mb, but I had no control over the process.

And thank you for the advice on Kelbytraining.com I am a member of Lynda.com and have learned a tremendous amount with their on-line classes. This site looks pretty sharp too, with a more narrow focus. This forum and the Poser forum have also been a huge help over the past 12 months of learning.

"*AM I way off base, is there better easier to use, or cheaper to purchase. I have access to student pricing for the Creative suite3 or 4, so it's not beyond reach."

Winsows comes with MovieMaker. Apple comes with iMovie. With either OS you have, you're covered for the basics.

Most DVD burning utilities (Roxio, Nero, etc.) come with a video application to do this as well. A basic video editing app - usually to output to DVD, but theyoften can export to a small variety of formats - Quicktime, AVI, mpeg, etc.

As far as for "purchase"... Well, I guess define "cheap":

Adobe Premiere Elements last time I checked was $99 - might even be cheaper right now. This would be my foremost reccomendation. I've used the Creative Suite since v1.5 (and Premiere since v6, and Photoshop and AE since versions5), and I've dabbled with Elements - I was really surprised at what it can do. And yes, it exports to a good variety of formats.

Pinnacle Studio is also around the $99 range - might be cheaper - I know there's a $150-ish version that includes a breakout box (BoB) and a cheap greenscreen. Again, simple to use, and exports to a variety of formats.

Avid used to have FREE DV - you can guess the price. Maybe you can find a copy floating around, I dunno.

I suggest these since you mentioned you have access for only a limited time - you might think of things you could have done after the access has gone.

Hope this helps-

-Lew ;-)