Best program to compress movie files?

[alek8976]

What is the best program that can compress a big movie file but keep the video quality? For example, from file which is 1.30GB to compress it to 200-300MB but preserve the same quality?

Thanks!

[jman98]

Your goal is currently impossible unless your idea of "preserve the same quality" is a lot looser than what most people would mean when they say that. You are talking about massively compressing a file that is almost certainly already compressed if it's at 1.3 GB. And 1.3 GB is hardly "big", so that's kind of an interesting opinion to have. This is not 1995 you know. Newegg.com is selling 1.5 TB drives for about $80 US right now.

I suppose if you are hellbound on doing this, you should probably look into Handbrake. It uses H.264 so if you are determined to compress again, it gives you the best quality at lower bit rates, but I'm afraid that looking for 200-300 MB files is going to require bit rates so low that most people wouldn't be happy with what they get. Then again, the fact that you even think that this is possible suggests that you may be a lot less picky than you realize so try Handbrake and see if it meets your needs.

[Baldrick]

You will always lose quality when you compress video. Especially if you are trying to shrink an already heavily compressed movie file(yes, 1.3gb is small in video) to only 200mb.


But if you reduce the resolution(640x480/360/ or lower) and use h264 video,aac audio in a mp4/mkv can you get decent quality in such low sizes. Try for example vidcoder, lower the resolution/frame size, set the output file size, use low audio bitrate(32-64kbits) and try convert.


Or buy more HDD space!


edit: Too slow...

[hech54]

1.30GB to compress it to 200-300MB but preserve the same quality!

Not gonna happen.

[alek8976]

Thanks, for the suggestions!

My next laptop will be with bigger hard drive, but right now i am stuck with my old one with 160GB HD which is almost full.

[drjtech]

My next laptop will be with bigger hard drive, but right now i am stuck with my old one with 160GB HD which is almost full.

If only there was some way to connect a much larger external drive to your laptop and use it to store your movie files.

WD Elements 2TB Desktop External Hard Drive $79
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136471

[sanlyn]

I have an 8-year-old 160GB laptop, but no way am I going to process video on that unless it's just for a quick look. Most laptop screens are too dark and color-poor to begin with. So I don't envy you for your dilemma, as life can be rough with what you have. A fairly good size 2.5" portable USB drive has plenty more room, but they are slow drives -- usually the same 5400rpm that's on your laptop. Still, an external drive on sale and a budget LCD VGA monitor would connect to most laptops (I've seen people sell old monitors for $5 USD).

[jman98]

If only there was some way to connect a much larger external drive to your laptop and use it to store your movie files.

You're nice to try to help, but the OP's two posts have just convinced me that he's not really understanding what we are saying. I mean I know people with abysmal PC skills who can barely use their computers and even they know better than then OP about using external storage. At this point I think any further responses are nothing more than us just listening to ourselves talk.

[sanlyn]

You're probably right. I think the O.P. doesn't understand "video compression", but rather thinks it's just feeding a file thru WinZIP or RAR. 1.3GB down to a miserly 300MB is insane, even if quality isn't a factor. There are so many posts exactly like this one, someone (not I) should compile an index to them so that these threads don't repeat themselves ad nauseam.

[yoda313]

Why doesn't the poster simply burn to dvdrs???

If a new harddrive is out of the question for the time being use dvdrs. For not much more you can go to dual layer and get close to 8gb per disc.

Then you don't have to shrink.

But buy quality discs like taiyo yuden and burn more than one copy for backups. Then when you save up for a harddrive copy to that too. But keep your backups.

I have multiple harddrives and multiple disc backups for my video files and family photos. I also pay for an amazon cloud drive for family pictures.

I still don't feel totally secure. I'd prefer a true home server for ultimate security but my "manual raid" system is sufficient for now.

Basically I agree with the other posters here. You are expecting too much to go from your starting size to the target size you mention. Its not realistic and honestly not worth your time or effort.