Recommended settings to cut down 10GB MPEG file?

[yetanotherlogin]

Hello

I shot a 3h30 MPEG video with my camcorder and would like to share it with friends. As they'll watch it on their computer, quality can be reduced and make upload/download faster.

I attached a screenshot of the codec infos per VLC. What would you recommend I change and using which Windows application?


Thank you.

[Baldrick]

Just throw it in vidcoder or handbrake and convert to mp4/mkv with h264 video. Use the high profile.

If the mpg video is interlaced be sure to use a deinterlace filter under filters.

[diprotic]

Depends on how you want to share it with your friends, and whether quality is a high priority. Probably easiest to just do what Baldrick said: pass it through Handbrake and upload the resulting mp4 to youtube.

If you want to go more old school you could use, say, DVDFlick to make a DVD out of it. Beware that DVDFlick usually works, but its encoding settings aren't that great.

[yetanotherlogin]

Thanks for the tips.

I converted the original 10GB file into an MP4 file with the H264 video codec; The output generated by ffmpeg is down to 1.8GB while the output generated by VidCoder is 2.7GB.


Is there something I could try to further reduce the size significantly?

[Baldrick]

Increase the constant quality setting under the video tab. Try around 25-30.

Or in vidcoder under settings->video set the exact target file size directly(use 2-pass for better quality but it's slower).


You could also lower the audio bitrate and convert to aac audio.

[yetanotherlogin]

Thanks for the tips. Using the default settings, the original 10GB file was compressed to 2.7GB by VidCoder and 2.2GB by Handbrake.

I ended up using ffmpeg with the following settings, which go the file down to a respectable 1GB:

ffmpeg.exe -i input.mpg -c:v libx264 -b:v 900k -s 640x360 -strict experimental -c:a aac -ab 192k -ac 2 -ar 44100 -preset slower output.mp4

[Baldrick]

You can adjust same settings in both vidcoder and handbrake....but if you prefer command line tools then it doesn't matter what you use. Both are using x264 encoder.

[yetanotherlogin]

Thanks for the info. I prefered to use a CLI so I could understand a bit more about what is being done.