"Can the program that you asked me to download take a capture from a digital camera and make good quality, small size files?"
I think it can capture/thumb any movie that can be viewed with windows media player.
"Are most computers able to view Windows Movie Video? This test I did was pretty amazing on the different in size files...but if people can't view them...then it's moot."
If you encode 'em in wmv9, then anyone who uses win98 1st edition and ealier won't be able to watch it. People on win98 2nd edition would be fine though. Also, people on a Mac would need to download and install media player for Macs since it doesn't come pre installed. So encode for wmp8 and instruct your mac users to install wmp for macs. I'm sure they have verions for unix users too. You could always encode 'em in mpegs
btw, check your e-mail.