Back in 2008, I recorded a 1h 3m 720x576 video from a Canon MD101 MiniDV camcorder (manual), which resulted in a 13.2 GB file.
What is the best way to convert this to something smaller, without losing as much of the quality as possible?
If it helps, here are the details of the file in question:
General
Format: AVI
Format/Info: Audio Video Interleave
Commercial name: DVCAM
Format profile: OpenDML
Format settings: BitmapInfoHeader / WaveFormatEx
File size: 13.2 GiB
Duration: 1 h 2 min
Overall bit rate mode: Constant
Overall bit rate: 30.3 Mb/s
Frame rate: 25.000 FPS
Recorded date: 2009-01-01 00:35:40.000
Video
ID: 0
Format: DV
Commercial name: DVCAM
Codec ID: dvsd
Codec ID/Hint: Sony
Duration: 1 h 2 min
Bit rate mode: Constant
Bit rate: 24.4 Mb/s
Width: 720 pixels
Height: 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio: 16:9
Frame rate mode: Constant
Frame rate: 25.000 FPS
Standard: PAL
Color space: YUV
Chroma subsampling: 4:2:0
Bit depth: 8 bits
Scan type: Interlaced
Scan order: Bottom Field First
Compression mode: Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame): 2.357
Stream size: 12.6 GiB (95%)
Encoding settings: wb mode= / white balance= / fcm=auto focus
Audio
ID: 1
Format: PCM
Format settings: Little / Signed
Codec ID: 1
Duration: 1 h 2 min
Bit rate mode: Constant
Bit rate: 1 536 kb/s
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 48.0 kHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Stream size: 687 MiB (5%)
Alignment: Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration: 1000 ms (25.00 video frames)