Recording a TV show

i just got a tv card for my pc, and i managed to record something with the
software that came with it but it turned a 2 hour recording into a 3.5gb mpeg
file. what software do i use to compress the show so its a similar size to the
kinds of eps i find on here? thanks for your help.

look up 2 pass xvid (not divx!) and virtual dub mod on yahoo/google (doom9
websites are good). 2 hours with commercials removed (~84min) should be about 700mb

just so you know, if the card you are talking about is connected to a digital
cable/sat by a composite(rca)/s-video/coaxile cable. then thats a analog rip
(which is tagged tvrip by the scene groups)

some people suggest autogk but i don't because the chance of error is higher in
it for bad crop and incorrect resize (as it doesn't even let you choose the height).

here is a page to set up 2 pass xvid (but dont use quarter pixel or global
motion. use unrestricted profile always) h**p://www.doom9.org/xvid-vdub-11.htm
avisynth is the best way to go for video filters and encoding time
(source/crop/resize/deinterlace and so on.) but virtual dub filters are probably
the best for beginners (note: don't use deint blend, even discard is better then it)
you can download lame acm and use that to re-encode audio in vdubmod (streams >>
streams list)

thanks for the help.