Before going on HOW TO COMPRESS A VIDEO, you should know what is compression and why you are needed to compress a video. Compression is when the strings of code of the file are either replaced or deleted to make the file size smaller. There are many good reasons that prove to be in your favor for the advantages of compressing a video.
With the rapid development of the Internet, there is an ever-growing need to reduce the size of any given file as much as possible for the smooth working of your software.
Therefore, you should be assured that there is no harm done to your files or videos while compressing them using the exact similar process you can compress GIF as well. And it only helps you without affecting the video’s quality. All files are compressed somewhat in the same manner with only slight differences depending on the type of file that is needed to be compressed. Here we are going to guide you on how to compress video files without losing quality. But first, you need to understand what video compression is.
Video compression is a very important aspect of how video streaming websites work. Video compression mostly works by minimizing redundancy in the video data. We can understand it by an example. Let’s say you are watching a video with a resolution of 1320 by 1080 pixels which is like 2 million pixels per frame and in this case you got 30 frames per second. That’s a whopping 62 million pixels per second. If each pixel needs 24 bits or 3 bytes of information then you are looking at 178 megabytes of data per second, completely uncompressed that would be 51 gigabytes of information for a single 5-minute video. But the size of this 5-minute high-resolution video can be reduced to 700 times smaller when it is compressed.
Generally, there are two ways to compress a video:
Spatial Compression or Intraframe compression is applied only to individual video frames. To compress a video frame you can use up the same process that’s used to compress a still image.
Temporal Compression or Interframe compression works again by reducing redundancy. If you go through a video frame by frame that has many frames almost completely identical to each other. In this type, that is a redundancy that can be easily compressed.
Everything about a compression can be broken down into one term- BITRATE. The Bitrate is the amount of data or bits that are being used every second. If a video has a low bitrate it will have a low resolution or low quality with lots of compression artifacts. While on the other hand, if a video has a high bitrate it will be of high quality and/or high resolution. So the more bits you have to work with, the better the video will look.
Now for any video that is too compressed, you would have to change a few settings of the video file. There are many methods you can compress a video. To start with the basics, you can go for the cinematic option where you get HD quality with cinematic 24 frames per second. Or also you can reduce the number of frames from 24 to 18 frames per second with the Super-8 option. There is also a Just HD option available that provides the default highest quality with longer render times. And if you can compromise with the quality then you can go with the standard option where you can tradeoff between quality and render times. And If you don care much about the quality, there is this Draft option for you that provides low quality for quick render times.
There are also some Advanced options in the video settings that can help you to reduce its size. For example like FPS limit is Frame Per Second rate. You can change this according to your wish. Then there is also the Resolution setting where you can reduce the pixels as per your wish that befits your video. Or you can simply just make a change in the Constant Rate Factor that is CRF. The higher your CRF the lower quality of your video and the smaller the file would be. And the lower it is going to be the higher the quality of the video. Other than that, you also have the option of changing the Encoder preset setting. Just set this option to the slowest you can accpet because slower settings will create better quality or smaller files.
There are many ways and options available where you can know how to compress a video. There is all kinds of software, application, and online websites that serves you with the video compression facility without losing the quality. Many of these video compression tools can work on Windows, Mac or ioS, and Android. Some of these tools are available for free as well some charge money.
Adobe Premiere is software that is used mostly used by professionals who work as a video editors or something along the line. It does provide a free trial that goes for seven days and it does not have any watermark or anything like that. Though its interface might be quite difficult for you to use if you are a first-timer.
HandBrake is more of a consumer-level tool for video compression. If you are doing a video compression for a non-professional kind, then this would just work fine for you. This has a lot of settings too which helps to reduce the size of the video without losing much of its quality. It is completely free and has a user-friendly interface.
VEED can be called the best video compressor for the web out there. It is a cloud-based online tool that offers video compression completely free of cost at a fast speed and is easily accessible online. This supports files in all formats like MP4, MOV, MKV, WMV, and more. One good point about VEED is that it shows you the size of the video file as you modify it. DSo you don’t have to play a game of guessing and checking later if you got it right or not.
Quicktime can prove to be a very useful video compressor if you are a MAC user. If you want to compress a video on MAC, then you might already find Quicktime by default on your Macbook. Though there is only a limited option available for video compression on Quicktime. But it may suffice if you are only looking for reducing the file size.
A VLC player is a tool that everyone knows about. It works on every kind of operating system including Windows, Mac, and Linux. Since it is a media player and video compressing is it just an additional feature. So if all you want to do is compress a video then VLC is the easiest option for you.
So in conclusion, you have to accept one thing though, that the more the bits you have to work with the better the video will look. There is just no getting around with that even with the best compression methods. Video compression is a balancing act between a good-looking video or a small file size. You cannot have both with perfection. However, the tools mentioned above do help you to compress videos without losing quality. But it is just that these tools work on your video in a way and replace or remove only those parts that go mostly unnoticed by the human senses. So we think that it did not make a change in the quality of the video.
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