Hah, just because of my lack of posts doesn't mean I don't have the experience ;P And yeah, this is a hobby and all for me too. Actually about went to school for directing/video editing, but changed my mind...
Anyway, there's no way to make it smaller without loosing some quality. Something like dvix or about any MPEG4 codec would be you're best bet. Or if you can burn it to something, MPEG2. You can make a 1 to 1.5 hour DVDR5 disk with next to no quality loss. Of course this mean file sizes around 5 gigs, but I'm sure it's better than your raw footage ;P