Working with video files can be tricky, especially when producing them for your ePortfolio. Because the ePortfolio is not a media server like specialised video sites such as YouTube, there are more constraints on the the type of video you produce before you can successfully upload it to the ePortfolio system - you need to keep the file size to a minimum and produce your videos in a particular format.

Try out one of the following programs for converting video formats and reducing their file size. They are both for Windows, but Mac users can do most of the same things, and more, in iMovie (search YouTube for iMove tutorials).

Windows MovieMaker

If you're using Windows 7 or newer, you'll have Windows MovieMaker already installed on your computer. You can use this to convert your videos to mp4 format, and even do some basic editing, add titles and effects.

You can drag your video straight into Windows MovieMaker or browse for it by clicking the "Add videos and photos" button. Follow these steps to save it as a small mp4 file. Saving the video "for email" produces a video 426px wide by 240px high, which is a good fit for an ePortfolio page.

If you don't have "mp4" as an option to save the file as, then you have an older version. Check the upgrade site to see if you can upgrade to MovieMaker 2012 or newer. Otherwise, try the Freemake video converter.

Freemake Video Converter

Freemake Video Converter is a handy and free tool for converting both video and audio files to different formats. It also allows you to do some basic trimming of your videos, and if you discover your video is displaying sideways or upside down, you can use Freemake to rotate it to the correct orientation.

Note: When you install Freemake, during the installation process, choose the custom install options and untick any other software it wants to install - the software is safe to install, but there are a couple of other little programs bundled into the installer which aren't particularly useful.

Freemake is really easy to use. Here's a couple of screenshots that show you how: