Windows Movie Maker 6.0 64-bit: "tiny" song becomes 2.3GB??????

hail all:

Specs:
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-10600KU @ 4.10GHz, 4104 Mhz,
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. 1.00, 5/25/2020
SMBIOS Version 3.2
Main Board MAG B460 TOMAHAWK (MS-7C81)
Graphics Card MSI GeForce RTX 3070 Ti-Monitor
RAM 32.0 GB
Total Physical Mem 31.9 GB

SSD/HDD 1 x 500 GB Samsung 970 EVO PCIe NVMe M.2 (2280)[SYSTEM], 4 x HGST 4 TB 7200RPM 128MB SATA NAS
Available Virtual Mem 4.21 GB
Kernel DMA Protection ON

OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Version 10.0.19044 Build 19044

Win Movie Maker: 6.0 64-bit

Issue:
Song: Vangelis - 12 o'Clock
Alteration: Slowed, Reverb
Total Play Time: 10'56"
Picture: 636x900x24
Save As: DV-AVI (NTSC)
Result, Estimated: 2.35 GB!!!!!!!!!!
Result, Effectively: 2.3GB!!!!!!!!!!!

PROOF!!!



Now, how does a song, slowed with reverb, high quality, result in a file size that can hold 2 full AVI movies in decent quality?
In other formats, I get even: 44 GB, and one up to a baffling 120+ GB (this is when I go for Best Option for PC).

Save as MP4? Not there, though that's a base format.
Save as MKV? Not there, though that's a base container format.

Can someone explain me what is going on?
Since, this seems pure "Voodoo, man, Black frakkin Magic, man!"? (Jamaican accent for drama effect)

Thank you.

It has been many years since I've seen Windows Movie Maker so forgive me for not being able to look at it to give you some solid recommendations. However, I notice that you have a bitrate of 28.6 Mbps selected. Will Windows Movie Maker allow you to alter that bitrate to something smaller?

If not, I am assuming that you don't have another video editing package installed or you would have likely tried that already, but how about another workaround?

1) Allow Windows Movie Maker to create the bloated video file.

2) Install Handbrake - Handbrake is not a video editor, it simply converts a video from one format to another.

3) Use handbrake to recompress the video to something far more efficient such as an MP4 or HEVC formatted video. That should come out to a tiny fraction of the size you are seeing.

If you like, take a video file output by Windows Movie Maker and place it somewhere publicly accessible such as OneDrive. I'll gladly pull it down and recompress it with various formats using Handbrake and inform you of the results that I am getting.

How it can happen is very simple. The higher the bitrate selected, the larger the resulting file will be.

Not being familiar with Windows Movie Maker, I don't know if you have direct control over the bitrate, but that would be something to look at.

In your case, the resulting size is pretty much spot on.

Let's do some calculations:

The screenshot says that the bitrate is 28.6Mbps (mega BITS per second). Since one byte = 8 bits, 28.6 / 8 = 3.575 MBs (Mega BYTES per second).

The length of the video is 10 min 56 sec or 656 seconds total.

656 x 3.575 = 2,345.2 MB. That rounds to 2.35GB, precisely what WMM is telling you.

I realize that there is the possibility that you may not have a choice in the matter, but if at all feasible for you, I would encourage you to look at more modern video CODECs. I used to work with DV-AVI formatted video, but by modern standards it's a truly horrible choice (if you have a choice).

I'd be willing to bet that I could get that video to under 100MB, likely with much better quality than DV-AVI could even dream of producing

One question remains in my mind: You noted that it happens only with that one video. Does that imply that you do not have control of choosing the bitrate or other settings that would impact the bitrate? Is it simply auto selected for you?