How to significantly reduce size of an HD video with nearly same quality?

[oedipust]

I'm interested to know how people are able to shrink HD videos of about 80-min length into an AVI/MKV of even less than a GB with same resolution (i.e. 1080p or 720p) and still an amazing quality!

For example, some 720p MKV's available at LINK REMOVED are around 500 MB only. Don't think one can achieve that with just reducing the bit rate, as I have tried this using AVS Video Converter and quality was significantly reduced.

[zoobie]

resolution, source, bitrate, and codec all interact with each other to bring you "amazing quality"

[guns1inger]

Well, you tried one encoder (and not a great one at that), so your sample size is worthless for appraising whether or not it can be done. I am also not inclined to download pirated videos form the link you provided to see how 'amazing' this quality is.

I will say that in my time here I have come to accept that what one person accepts as amazing quality another may well see as being rather poor quality. I have seen several files that boast 720p resolution at low filesizes, and none of them have impressed me as 'amazing'. Most have suffered substantially from either being soft and low in detail, or breaking up into artefacts during any movement, or both. I think ultimately it comes down to personal threshold for amazement, and some thresholds are much lower than others.

I also suspect that your personal encodes would be better if you used a better quality encoder that let you choose insanely high multi-pass settings, and left your computer to process for far longer periods per video.

[oedipust]

ohh... it looks you both have some serious problem with the word "amazing"

okay, if you wish so, recommend some encoders that give great compression with least video quality loss.

I'm not interested in sending the encoded video to a video lab for performing different tests on it to assess its quality. I just need highly compressed videos that play smooth without obvious noise when being playing in their actual resolution.

[guns1inger]

If you want high quality then don't try to squeeze the living sh*t out it when encoding. Be reasonable in your expectations. The harder you squeeze the size, the more compromises have to be made in the quality.

However to answer your specific question, anything that uses X264 as the encoder will give you high quality if treated with respect. However of you try to crush the size, you will lose quality, and there is no way around it.

There are plenty of front-ends to X264, including Xvid4PSP, Handbrake, MeGUI and more

[fritzi93]

HDConvertToX is another one that uses X264.

Here's my definition of "acceptable" quality: A conversion that is difficult to distinguish from the original on my 47" 1080p HDTV. I don't mind some occasional *minor* banding or posterization in shadowy scenes. That's one of the things which will degrade first when the bitrate is borderline insufficient. If I have to look hard for it and it's only momentary, that's acceptable to me.

By the criteria above, and this is just my empirical observation, you need at least 2.2-2.3 Mbps for 720p video. That's my minimum for H.264 720p cable HD captures, the bitrate of the source itself being usually somewhat borderline anyway. Assuming 192 kbps audio, you'd need ~ 1.5 GB or thereabouts for 80 minutes of 720p video to be watchable by my standards. 500 MBs is just ridiculously, completely insufficient IMO.

If you want smallest possible file size with acceptable quality, then something using X264 is pretty much your only choice.

[ron spencer]

Get a larger harddrive instead. Stop trying to play videos on iphone

[1337assassin]

Get a larger harddrive instead. Stop trying to play videos on iphone

i agree with this, however, if ur just watching them on your computer u probably max out at 2TB blank space if you have another 2T of other stuff, on a standard 2HDD system

and 2TB isnt alot of BluRay, but there arent an overwhelming number of dvd's on blu-ray that ud want to get, so to future proof, its best left on external TB drives in the original 25G HDD..

i would convert the HDBluray to DVD9 or maybe even DVD5 quality, if u just need them smaller on ur computer and are confident u can keep the original bluray disk in pristine condition

i've always been happy with eRightsoft's Super

[oedipust]

thanks guys, now i have got a clear picture and some good tools

[ron spencer]

2TB is a ton of space for movie only bluray MKVs...that is what my media server is made of...4 2TB drives....

[1337assassin]

2TB is a ton of space for movie only bluray MKVs...that is what my media server is made of...4 2TB drives....

it really depends.. what quality are u using? iwe've already reached the point where 100GB left on a partition is 'running low'

i have my movies in original DVD format, including all extras, menus, previews, commentary, warnings, etc, so i have about 8 times less space than people who compress. and now my collection of blurays is steadily growing, in original format.. you cant believe how small 2TB seems right now

[1337assassin]

the good thing about doing it this way, i dont have any 'junk movies' on my hdd's.. i'v only got about 1/4 of all my dvd's in my hdds, the rest i could probably throw out, but i'll keep them around on disk until we get up to 100TB drives, if we do get there.

i'm saving money too, as i'm far more selective with what i buy, and i see alot of other movies as 'wait til its streaming', or 'good for a rental'..

nothing except for the most excptional films get added to my HDD collection

and i've narrowed my collection down to quite a nice block of excellent films

[1337assassin]

in fact, i dont buy ANY bluray movie unless its a feat of visually stunning video i particularly want to gleam at

[the Devil]

bump.

[1337assassin]

'Amazing' Quality is about DVD9 Quality.. DVD5 is not bad either

If you are wanting a BluRay disk to look 'amazing' on your tv, DVD Quality still looks totally 'amazing'

BluRay is about 25GB of Data, and DVD9 is about 8GB, and DVD5 is about 4GB.. dual layer bluray are 50GB.. 500GB for a 20 Layer BluRay

Honestly speaking, for most movies Blu-Ray is overkill.. nobody wants to see 3 dimensional pimples

Blu-Ray is best for Movies with Vivid Scenery, Natural Scenery, some action movies & epic movies, etc..

honestly, Star Wars 3 still looks awesome no matter what

Disney Nature? gotta be bluray though..

Some Marvel, Hasbro, or DC Comics movies? Big fan so gotta be bluray

romance film or cheesy thriller? DVD quality is already more than I can handle

1080p is also already about half of what the standard will shortly be anyway..

even if you have "full HD" 1920x1080 on your phone or tablet, a 25GB BlueRay is not going to look any better than a regular DVD quality movie anyway, and I'm certain no better than a 1GB movie either.. you cant even notice such small details on such a small screen..even if the BluRay video you are playing is 25GB in size or more

and if its not 25GB in size, its not BluRay, and is not going to be full HD, unless its Full HD with lots of Loss in Quality, which would make it the same as a DVD at 720x480 shown on your 1920x1080 screen, or much worse

and that goes for any size Full HD screen, 6" or 60"

and 25 GB is larger than most Storage cards, and phone memory anyway

so if you are converting a video to "1GB", without any extras, strictly the playable feature-length video itself, you are still looking at a movie thats much lower quality than DVD quality, but that will still look good on your 6" or 60" Full HD display

But i think 1GB is generally accepted to be about the lowest acceptable quality setting for a typical full length feature Movie

1 GB still looks good

700MB is even ok for me for most movies, actually.. but is really not so hot on the quality.. i wouldnt want to watch my first "Green Lantern" on 700MB, or even 1GB, but just because i love those movies,.. but if I was wanting to take them in my phone, 1GB is already too big, imo, and 700 MB would be what I shot for

[jagabo]

You seem to have confused the terms "amazing" and "adequate".

[1337assassin]

not really

a 200 mb movie will look like bluray on a wristwatch screen anyway

"Amazing" has more to do with they type of movie

DVD5 is "Adequate" for most hollywood crap, yet they insist on making blurays that nobody wants anyway

and "Amazing" is Amazing.. even around 1GB

under that its less than amazing.

3D animation is pretty amazing on DVD9 already, even some DVD5 look pretty great, thanks to the amount of detail put into the animation

bluray is overkill, unnecessary for anything but movies made specifically for bluray enjoyment, due to special camera work focused on beauty alone.. which is more like photography really

and, in truth, most people watch movies at about 1GB, especially streamed movies & portable movies.

and whether or not that works for you depends really on you, the movie you are watching, and what you are watching it on

but 1GB looks super amazing on the newer Full HD Mobile displays

you cant tell the difference between that and bluray at such a small size anyway.. your eyes cant even discern the difference at such a small space ratio

truth be told, bluray would probably give you a headache on a mobile display.. were anyone to actually do that

and i'm not kidding.. those movies look AMAZING.. to me.. considering they are on your phone.. 5 or 10 years ago the videos really sucked, because the screens sucked, and the sizes had to be so small

today its totally awesome.. you have in your hand something thousands of times better than what the entire world has even seen for decades

it looks better than the cinema already.. right in your palm.. at 1GB

[Hoser Rob]

Why don't you just start a blog so we don't have to be subjected to this?

[jagabo]

Yeah, I convert all my 1920x1080 Blu-ray movies to s 1x1 pixel frame and encode them lossless. That way I can get an entire 90 minute movie down to about 300 KBytes. The quality is amazing.

[sanlyn]

[bendixG15]

Are we done ?

[1337assassin]

you arent going to get any additional benefit from having a 50GB movie on your phone

sorry to disappoint you

dont let that stop you from telling all your friends you're watching bluray on your phone though

whip out your collection of 300 different 64GB MicroSD cards with one movie each on them and just bask in the oohs and aahs

if you have converted a Bluray movie.. ITS NO LONGER BLURAY

hope that desnt diminish that spanking new bluray tattoo above your tailbone

[jagabo]

Amazing! Do you have any other bleedin' obvious insights for us?

[1337assassin]

once a movie has been converted down from its original blueray disk-quality format it will not be Full HD, regardless if you encode it into 1920x1080 format again

BluRay movies are 1920x1080 and no higher.

The Original movie may be capable of making QuadHD or 4K, but you dont have any of that data on your BluRay disk.. you have only what that film looks like at 1920x1080, pixel for pixel, and a pixel doesnt contain any more information than a single block of a solid color.

its the same idea as taking a photograph thats at 7680x4320 resolution, and then zooming it out so you can see it on your 1280x1024 monitor. there is no difference than if you were just looking at a photograph that was taken at 1280x1024.. none whatsoever.

its the same reason a 4or 6 megapixel camera can take the same quality photo as a 30 or 40 Megapixel Camera, if they are both just going to be viewed 3000x2000 6MP resolution

there will be no difference viewing the 3000x2000 6 MP image, over the 7744x5160 40 Megapixel image, on an HD-1080 1920x1080 Full HD Monitor, if the photo is viewed at full screen, and taken with a similar camera, same lens, same lighting, and similar high-quality sensor.

The only visible difference you will get is when you zoom it in past the 3000x2000 resolution range, which is already quite a gigantic Pan on a Full HD Monitor

on the other hand, a 6mp DSLR photo will look infinitely better than a Nokia 20 MP voyeurphone, regardless if its viewed at 200x300 or 2000x3000 6MP or 5480x3656 20MP, though full clarity on the 6MP DSLR is limited to 2000x3000, which clarty the voyeurphone wont ever reach anyway

and if you took your giant 2000x3000 image, and zoomed out to 1920x1080, your image isnt going to increase in quality, what will happen if your eyes wont be able to discern the difference anymore than it would if you held a photo in front of your nose or viewed it at arms length

same thing if you zoom out to 200x300.. what happens is all that information becomes unimportant, and you see things the same as if it were the same photo but much smaller

and if your monitor was 2000x3000 resolution, and was 120" large and you were standing close to it, it would still look even less clear than if you were standing a few meters back.. and the further back you stood, the smoother everything would look, even if you had perfect human 20/20 vision

if you sat 50 meters back and stared at a monitor through binoculars, it would the same as it would look on your phone, but probably even more clear since there are no pixels to discern at that distance

and if you stood 20 meters back from a 2000x1500 monitor, and further back from a 2000x3000 monitor, so that both appeared comparitavley the same size to you, you couldnt tell the difference anyway, they would look the exact same, all other things being equal

and if you made your tv 7" instead of 120" but kept the same 2000x3000 resolution, your human eye would likely give you a head ache, or it would be completely unnoticed, because the human eye is incapable of discerning the difference of something so inconsequential as microscopic color pixels

which is the same reason we see only a patch of blue on a given item, but under a microscope there may be billions of colors

so sorry.. you may have a fullHD-1080 phone, but your 50GB of data are lost on it

and on a quality 47" HDTV television Screen, blu-ray will look much better than 1GB or even DVD9, but that's only if the movie has something that looks especially better in FullHD, such as great cinematography

but if you want them on your harddrive, then you're looking at 50GB per movie. 20 movies per Terabyte.. which is silly..

I keep my BluRays on Disk, only

Converting a BlueRay has no benefit whatsoever, and you are better off buying the regular DVD

and if the movie is not a particularly stunning visual feat, theres really no reason to even buy a bluray, except to impress your friends or inflate you sense of self importance, as has happened to our resident troll Hoser

[1337assassin]

and if you are buying a movie solely for HDD use on a home screen, buy DVD9s, and keep them the same size, but rip out the extra data if you want to save space

and if you are mostly looking to convert for tablets, phones or computers, buy DVD5's, they are way cheaper anyway, and leave them at the original format without the extras

and if you want to save space, and keep a higher quality, and get a smaller file size, because Space is your main issue, You really have 2 options:

1. Buy the Dual Layer DVD, DVD9, and convert it to AVI or MVK or something else, down from the original VOB or DAT files,, and maybe be looking at 2 or 3 GB for quite a similar movie to the original

2. Buy the Single Layer DVD5 version, convert it to AVI, MVK or whatever from those original DVD files, and look at 1GB or maybe less for quite a similar movie quality to the original DVD

and dont convert BlueRays. Ever.

And pass the original DVD's along to your family & friends, or put them in a Motor Home or Beach house somewhere.

but I still recommend DVD9's in the original VOB or DAT Format, with all the extra features.. 8GB per movie is totally ok.. there are already 6TB drives

[jagabo]

And the sky is blue and grass is green.

[1337assassin]

"1GB HD-1080 Movies" are a gimmick

Only BlueRay or HDDVD are HD-1080 Movies

Once converted, they are no longer HD, even if the resolution is re-expanded to 1920x1080

they would look better at a smaller resolution, and actually are a smaller Resolution thats really just been put through a stretcher in order to be able to claim the HD Throne.. where they dont belong. kinda like Hoser does in this forum

They are just masquerading around hoping to be thought of as higher than they actually are

they are not Full HD.. but any film can be encoded to have teh resolution of 1920x1080, but they are going to be much lower quality than a high quality 9GB DVD9 which is stretched to full-screen view on your 1920x1080 HDTV

[1337assassin]

And the sky is blue and grass is green.

hmm.. ok..

so, and you? tell us more about you..

thats why we're all here

here wait, lemme get you the Mic..

ok, here it is..

this is your stage buddy,

CAN WE GET SOME LIGHTS OVER HERE PLEASE!

This guy needs to be seen & heard, please, thank you very much

wait for the second act.. Hosers always a hosing good time as well

[1337assassin]

lemme finish the rhyme for you

"The grass is green,
The sky is blue,
I know everything I just read
I'm just not going to tell you"

[deadrats]

i can't believe i'm actually taking time out of the work i have to do to post this but...

this "guy" 1337assassin joins videohelp in oct 2010, posts some stuff in this thread and the thread goes dead. some other "guy" that joined in dec 2013 actually "bumps" the dead thread and this 1337 dude picks up were he left off without missing a beat, if i hadn't looked at the dates i would have thought the entire thread had just taken place.

how much of a pathetic life do you have to have to come back to a thread that ended 3 1/2 years ago and continue as if nothing is amiss.

i just don't get it.