Most Effective Conversion Technique?

[Bacon Nivison]

In compressing a video, it seems that if I try to reduce the size of a video by too much I dramatically lose video quality. However, if I use the "Compression Settings" set to 70%, run the compression, then repeat the process however many times it takes to get down to the size I'm shooting for. I can go through the process and still retain good quality. Sometimes this takes 4 or five repeated compressions. It isn't a problem it's just a matter of time. Is this typical or am I missing something?

[wade7575]

What program are you using,I use Handbrake to compress or encode video and it works fine for me.

You can use it to make a video go from 1280x720p to 720x404 or 720x480p as well,you can also use it to reduce the megabyte size as well.

[ProWo]

You should not compress a video more than once, as the quality deteriorates with each compression.

[wade7575]

I miss the part where you said that you compress the video many times,ProWo is correct don't do that for sure.

The best thing to do is start by telling us what software your using.

[Hoser Rob]

You should not compress a video more than once, as the quality deteriorates with each compression.

+1.

Beyond that there's not enough info, eg as mentioned the software you're using.

You don't say what you;re encoding to but if you want decent quality and small files you want HEVC/x265 video unless you can't use it for compatibility reasons. x264 isn't actually optimized for low bit rates all that well. x265 is since it was developed with streaming in mind.

[hello_hello]

In compressing a video, it seems that if I try to reduce the size of a video by too much I dramatically lose video quality. However, if I use the "Compression Settings" set to 70%, run the compression, then repeat the process however many times it takes to get down to the size I'm shooting for. I can go through the process and still retain good quality. Sometimes this takes 4 or five repeated compressions. It isn't a problem it's just a matter of time. Is this typical or am I missing something?

How do you try to reduce the size of the video other than changing "compression settings"? Do you specify a quality or a bitrate etc? What video codec and/or GUI are you encoding with? What type of video is your source?
Repeated compression to reduce the file size doesn't really make much sense if you're referring to encoding the video, re-encoding the encoded version and then re-encoding that encode etc, but unfortunately your post doesn't provide enough information to even guess as to the cause of the problem.

[rgr]

am I missing something?

Definitely.

[jagabo]

I can imagine a scenario where stepwise reencoding to a small file size might look better to a novice. For example, with a noisy source each reencode results in more noise reduction. A novice might interpret that noise reduction as looking better, and not notice (or care) that a lot of other detail has disappeared along with the noise.

Of course, a better (and probably faster) way to approach this is to use good noise reduction filters before encoding and only encode once. You will have more control over the noise reduction and better encoding.

[Bacon Nivison]

Obviously I'm no expert in this. I simply use the "Compressor" option. A "Compression Settings" window opens preset to 70%. If I reduce that to whatever, say 45%, the file size will be reduced, but the quality of the finished file is notably reduced. Thus I get the desired file size but in an unwatchable quality. However, if I go ahead and run it at 70% the quality remains decent. So I do that over and over again and eventually get a file size I'm looking for (under 1 GB) and still a watchable quality. I've experimented with Constant Bitrate. But the most acceptable result comes from simply running it over and over at 70% until the final desired file size is reached. I end up with the desired file size in a watchable version. The only downside being the time involved.

[rgr]

Obviously I'm no expert in this. I simply use the "Compressor" option. A "Compression Settings" window opens preset to 70%. If I reduce that to whatever, say 45%, the file size will be reduced, but the quality of the finished file is notably reduced. Thus I get the desired file size but in an unwatchable quality. However, if I go ahead and run it at 70% the quality remains decent. So I do that over and over again and eventually get a file size I'm looking for (under 1 GB) and still a watchable quality. I've experimented with Constant Bitrate. But the most acceptable result comes from simply running it over and over at 70% until the final desired file size is reached. I end up with the desired file size in a watchable version. The only downside being the time involved.

Just use a good denoiser and you'll get a better file in the right size. Multiple recompressions are the worst idea.
Paste a sample.

[Bacon Nivison]

I got Rhino, but I don't see how to use it. It doesn't recognize video nor image files. Is there a particular program I should be using?