The problem with videos, both those created with the smartphone or camera and those downloaded from the internet, is that often their dimensions are so large as to prevent you from sharing quickly via social networks or via email. In another article we have already seen some free programs to compress videos that are easy to use, also because they are automatic.
In this article, however, we will show you which parameters to configure on the programs to reduce the size of the videos, without however losing quality and therefore leaving the images and audio to remain of a good level as the original file.
The final result will be a clearly smaller file, with a quality practically identical to the original one, but which we can freely share via e-mail, via chat or on social networks without fear that the file may appear too large or that it will take you too long nell'upload.
READ ALSO -> Convert Video, from Divx to DVD and from DVD to Divx or MP4
1) Handbrake
The first program that we can use to reduce the size of the videos without loss of quality is definitely Handbrake, also because it is completely free, it is available for Windows, Mac and Linux and does an excellent job of encoding and converting videos.
This program may seem complex (especially compared to the other programs recommended below) but we guarantee that it allows you to get the best results, given the large number of adjustable voices.
- Video upload: to upload the video to convert we use the Source button at the top, select the video file to be reduced and then, in the Output tab, we follow the steps described below to get a good configuration for the conversion.
- Audio settings : before thinking about the quality of the video, first of all, open the Handbrake " Audio " tab.
For a video or film where music is not a priority, in order to maintain good quality of the dialogues, it is necessary to check if there are multiple audio tracks and delete all the excess ones.
For a film, choose only Italian while if it is a video made by us, choose the first and delete the others.
In Codecs, choose AAC (CoreAudio) or MP3 which are good compressed audio file formats for most cases.
Even for music concert videos it is possible to choose one of these lossy formats and then maybe keep the highest bitrate.
In bitrate, choose 160 for most videos or higher (256 or 320) if you are converting a music video.
READ ALSO: Differences between audio formats
- Choose video codec and container : the original video that you want to reduce should have maximum video quality therefore, to compress it, you need to choose the most efficient codec and container.
The codec is the encoder / decoder that transforms a video into bytes, while the container is the file format (which determines compatibility with different devices and services).
Let's move on to the Video settings section and choose as H.264 Codec, while as container we choose MKV, which in addition to being efficient, is also the most widely recognized file format for videos.
For example, YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook and recommend the use of MP4 videos which are also viewed by the standard video playback app of iPhone and Android phones.
READ ALSO: Differences between video formats
- Reduce the video resolution : the resolution of the video is its size, that is how much the images are defined and therefore visible on larger screens.
For example it is useless to see a 4K resolution video on a mobile phone screen while it is disadvantageous to see a low resolution video on a Full HD TV.
Commonly used resolutions are: 2160p (3840 × 2160), 1440p (2560 × 1440), 1080p (1920 × 1080), 720p (1280 × 720) and 480p (854 × 480) .
As a rule, when you need to reduce the size of a video file, you should check the original resolution and lower it to the nearest one of these levels.
In Handbrake the width of the video can be changed by changing the Width value in the Picture tab.
If the video is intended to be uploaded to YouTube or Facebook, then you can choose 720p or 1080p resolution.
Pressing the right mouse button on the blank of the Pictures section you can preview the video at the chosen resolution.
- Lower the bitrate : the most important factor in determining the quality of a video is its transmission speed, the bitrate, which represents the amount of data that is displayed in a second.
The lower the bitrate, the more artifacts can be displayed on the screen and the worse the video quality will be.
As a reference value of bitrates to be used in a compression program, the one recommended by Youtube can be used.
In Handbrake, go to the Video tab and write the number in the AVG Bitrate in kbps field (5 Mbps are 5000 kbps) and also select the 2-pass encoding option.
NOTE : You can also use the CRF value which in Handbrake is the Constant Quality option and set it between 18 and 22.
Be especially careful not to touch the Frame Rate !
This is a value to never change in order not to compromise the smoothness of a video and make it snappy.
2) Avidemux
Another program that we can use to reduce video size without loss of quality is Avidemux, freely downloadable on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Once installed on your PC, we follow the following steps to perform the reduction:
- Click on Open Video at the top to open the original video to be converted.
- Once the video is loaded into the program, we select the Mpeg4 AVC codec in the Output Video section, while in the Audio section we select AAC (FDK) .
- Now click on Configure under the Video Output section, then set the Video Size item (two passes) as Encoding Mode .
- Now we can choose the desired final size for the video: set a value in MB and confirm OK on the bottom.
- Set the entry mkv Muxer as the output container and finally click on the top on Save video to start the conversion.
If we have done everything correctly, the video will be converted to fit the dimensions indicated, without evident loss of quality.
Are we not satisfied with the result?
We can always act on the other parameters of the program to set a minimum and constant bit rate, to change resolution and act on other parameters that stabilize the quality in a very effective way (almost on par with HandBrake).
3) Xmedia Recode
Another simple and free program that we can use to reduce the size of videos without loss of quality is Xmedia Recode, available for free for Windows.
Also in this case the steps to follow are decidedly simple to understand, since the program is able to create customized videos based on the device that we intend to use for playing the videos.
The steps to follow are as follows:
- Open the program and load the video using the Open file or Open Disc button (if it were a DVD or a file stored on an optical disc).
- Once the video is loaded, in the Format Output menu we choose the manufacturer and the device on which playback will be started in the Profile item .
- In the Format menu we choose the format in which to convert the video, also helping us with the section of devices present in the star-shaped menu (there are all types of smartphones, Smart TVs and consoles).
- As a file extension we always recommend using MKV or MP4 to be on the safe side.
Once we have chosen the right profile and format, we click on the Encoding button at the top to start the conversion.
If we do not want to use the predefined profiles, we can always use the Custom profile, where we can choose each type of codec for audio and video and thus choose the best format to make our final video.
READ ALSO -> App to compress a video on Android
