this is part of my problem i am not sure how to compress it...the videos i am creating are strickly for my viewing or my familys and i am not savvy on how the compression or codecs work.  the only reason i used avi is because i knew what that was in the listing.  it is my intent to play the vids on my plasma tv at home through my computer.  if that helps you understand the situation of the presentation.  i just would like to be able to produce a beautful cgi movie to my family with high quality resolution (about an hour) without taking up 500G of space to do it.