Having issues with mp4 conversion

Hi there,

Earlier today I made a video with my phone which recorded things in .mp4 format. Soon enough I've found out that this is not a good format to edit videos and windows moviemaker doesn't support it.

I did some googling and found out about ffmpeg and winFF. Both seemed like great tools and I could convert my mp4 to different formats such as avi or wmv.

Here's my problem. The conversions are usually really bad in quality and my footage becomes quite a bit pixellated and shrinks from 1.5 gigs to 200 mbs.

Is there no option out there that will allow me to keep the quality a bit higher after a conversion? Am I missing a clear step? I humbly ask for your help.