Reducing swf size - AVI?

[clochach]

Hi there, new here :P

I could really use some help here, I'm trying to reduce the size of my animation for obvious reasons, usually ends up about 4mbs, im exporting from swift 3d, about 200-250 frames depending on editing. When I import the animation into flash to work with my website the resulting file is too large I think :P I was told to export from swift in avi and then import to flash after converting. Thats definetly reduced the filesize, but when I import to flash cs5 I get an empty symbol even after export from flash, nothing shows in the symbol.

Can anyone tell me if im doing this right, or another way to reduce the filesize. Sorry if this has been asked before, but my searches didnt help me :P any help appreciated!! Cheers.

Also, what is generally the acceptable filesize for an online swf?

[clochach]

Ahm, I spoke too soon. I was not using the video importer.

I exported from swift using avi/flv and all was fine once I imported correctly file size much reduced, a little quality sacrificed though.