MKV Compression to a smaller MKV or MP4

[THRobinson]

Hey... just wondered if an easy way (simple GUI program) that will compress an MKV file?

Normally I use VidCoder which works great for putting my movies into my media server or converting... but I had a bunch of MKV files that are way bigger than need to be and would like to compress them down. I tried VidCoder but seems to encode for about 2sec, says complete and the files are no good, maybe 4kb in size.

Are there any other programs that are simple to use? Like, open file, pick target size and save? or possibly I'm doing something wrong and someone has an idea what?

Thanks

[Baldrick]

You could try handbrake. Change the output file size under the video tab.


But vidcoder is based on handbrake so maybe it wont work that well. You could then try winff, format factory, freemake video converter. Adjust the video bitrate to get smaller size.

[THRobinson]

Vidcoder has been really good, not sure why it won't take an MKV and resave it to MKV or MP4. AVI files work fine. Haven't used Handbrake in a while, tried it a few times but didn't like it, but was quite a while ago, probably changed a bit.

I'll test the other ones. The files are low quality but 700MB each for something that's normally about 150MB. Until hard drives come down in price again I need to save some space.

[cal_tony]

I've tried the pair mentioned above but I always seem to go back to XMediaRecode for ease of use.

I've done as many as 15 files at once without any problem

You set the format you want on the left and every thing else falls into place one you see how it works.
It does a lot of conversions so it's always being updated. Since I always just use the MKV h264 format some versions
work better for that option than others. Right now I'm using ver3000 portable for it's ability to change format from mp4 to mkv or the other way around without changing the vid size.Takes about 5 seconds a file

I use 3070 because it 's faster than the newer versions for h264 encoding.

Tony

[Arthur_Ballsack]

You could try handbrake. Change the output file size under the video tab.


But vidcoder is based on handbrake so maybe it wont work that well. You could then try winff, format factory, freemake video converter. Adjust the video bitrate to get smaller size.

When I use this software I see numbers moving at the bottom of my screen but it appears to not be compressing anything as if the software is on pause all the time. There's no progress bar as in a percentage bar for me to tell whether or not the compression is working.

[Ze Tomes]

I would like to compress a mkv file to a specific size. For example from 9 GB to 4.2 GB. Can I do that with handbrake?
I can't find a field where I can insert the specific size of the output file as the principal directive for the compression, or at least have that information present (the size of the output) while adjusting other fields as bitrate or quality.

Thanks

[fornit]

I would like to compress a mkv file to a specific size. For example from 9 GB to 4.2 GB. Can I do that with handbrake?
I can't find a field where I can insert the specific size of the output file as the principal directive for the compression, or at least have that information present (the size of the output) while adjusting other fields as bitrate or quality.

Thanks

You need to calculate the bitrate and to do a 2pass encoding.

Example:
- Desired size for video stream: 4 GB
- Video duration: 3600 seconds

=> 4 / 3600 * 8 * 1024^3 / 1000 = 9544 kbps

Please note: You also need to consider the size of the audio stream and some overhead for the container

[Ze Tomes]

Thanks Fornit, there's any good bitrate calculator you'd suggest?

[fornit]

MS Excel

Or simply click on: bitrate calculator

It seems to do it's job:

[Ze Tomes]

Ahaha! Didn't realize it had an instant link. Thanks!