I was using the converter in aTube, but it does not seem to have the ability to set the bitrate. Can you recommend something else (that's free)?
You could give "Super" a try. The official site is:
http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html but good luck trying to find a download link. A download mirror can be found here:
http://majorgeeks.com/Super_d5117.htmlSuper is a very powerful encoding system with a lot of customisable settings. It's a little daunting using it for the first time though.
Edit: here is a post I made a while ago on how to use Super. Hopefully it will help.
1. Drag the file you want to convert into the box at the bottom of the screen.
2. Select the desired "Output Container" (AVI should be fine for most cases)
3. Select the desired"Video Codec" (MPEG-4)
4. Select the desired "Audio Codec" (MP3)
5. Select the desired Resolution of the file (No change will keep the resolution the same as your original file)
6. Select the desired Frame Rate (25 for PAL stuff, 29.97 for NTSC)
7. Select the desired video bitrate (experiment until you find a figure that looks alright)
8. Select the desired audio bitrate
9. Press the "Encode (active files)" button at the bottom of the screen.
The video will now start to convert and a new file will be stored in the following folder:
C:\Program Files\eRightSoft\SUPER\OutPut
Super has an infinite number of settings, so experiment to find the ones that work the best for your footage.
Any questions, feel free to ask.