Happy Jack Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 I've spent far too much time trying to work out the answer to this. I already have, or am given, videos of my bands in either .MOV or .AVI. Typically a single song will be in the region of a gigabyte, which is pretty unwieldy especially if I want to upload it to YouTube. I have, or can obtain, file converters which will take those videos into .MP4 or .WMV but this doesn't seem to achieve a great deal. File sizes remain huge (WMV is about a third smaller) and it's not clear what I achieve by doing this. I realise that this can be a hugely complex subject. All I really want to do is to reduce a 1Gb file to something a lot smaller, say 250Mb, without a noticeable drop in quality when played back on a PC or through YouTube. It follows that the converted file, in whatever format, must be playable and uploadable without further conversion. I've searched the various bits of video handling software I have for tools that will allow me to reduce or compress filesize but I'm not finding anything. Am I barking up the wrong tree? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dad3353 Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 (edited) Youtube uses Flash Video, and will convert all files received into flv format. Try exporting the avi or mov files as flv, and see what difference it makes. What software are you using..? Mac or PC..? I use VideoPad on a modest PC and find it useful for creating my Youtube-compatible stuff. I can take an avi, export to flv, Youtube-style, very easily. It takes a while to render (slow PC...), but nothing too bad. It can be tried for free. I dunno for Macs, though. Hope this helps (but I'm not convinced...). PS: I did a small trial, and the flv was about 5 x smaller. Could be smaller still by increasing compression, but quality then becomes an issue. Edited October 8, 2014 by Dad3353 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted October 8, 2014 Author Share Posted October 8, 2014 OK, just tried converting the same file as before into .FLV. Results just in: Original MOV file = 565 Mb Converted to MP4 = 546 Mb Converted to WMV = 361 Mb Converted to FLV = 549 Mb It's hard to see that as progress ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTUK Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 I would think Avi would be about the same. Codecs are a compression in themselves as I understand it so what is the problem with putting up something on Youtube that is bigger that you'd like... as long as you can play it Space is cheap but I can't recall what size our uploads were but as I understand it they came off a HDD vid cam for the most part so doubt they were small. Does YT have a space limit..? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannybuoy Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Look in the settings - if you are re-encoding video, there should be some options to change the resolution and/or bitrate. Otherwise you are just converting using whatever default settings your converter app is using, which won't give you much control over the resulting size. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dannybuoy Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 (edited) Also, extensions such as AVI and MP4 are 'containers' - they can hold lots of different video formats. It's possible to convert losslessly from AVI to MP4 if they both contain audio/video streams that each format supports. This also means you could re-encode an AVI with embedded MPEG2 video into an AVI with embedded MPEG4 video for example. There is no such thing as a 'standard' AVI format. Edited October 8, 2014 by dannybuoy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HowieBass Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 What's the frame size of the original video? If a clip of about 10 minutes needs a full gigabyte I'd guess it might be full HD? Thats 1920 x 1080 in 16:9 widescreen format. Try resampling/rendering it to something like 1280 x 720 or even 853 x 480 which should reduce the file size a fair bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted October 8, 2014 Author Share Posted October 8, 2014 [quote name='JTUK' timestamp='1412781521' post='2571990'] Does YT have a space limit..? [/quote] It's more a matter of how long it takes to upload on the connection I have here ... a three minute file is quoted as taking 90 minutes! [quote name='dannybuoy' timestamp='1412782015' post='2572000'] This also means you could re-encode an AVI with embedded MPEG2 video into an AVI with embedded MPEG4 video for example. [/quote] Sad to relate, but to me this is roughly equivalent to "t'crossbeam's gone askew on't treddle". [quote name='HowieBass' timestamp='1412782104' post='2572001'] What's the frame size of the original video? If a clip of about 10 minutes needs a full gigabyte I'd guess it might be full HD? Thats 1920 x 1080 in 16:9 widescreen format. Try resampling/rendering it to something like 1280 x 720 or even 853 x 480 which should reduce the file size a fair bit. [/quote] OK, so all I need to know now is how to resample/render ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HowieBass Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 The 'Any Video Converter' program I've got allows you to do that during the conversion process. It's a piece of free software too, Windows only AFAIK (just be careful when installing that you don't sign up for any free bloatware or changes to your home page, preferred search engine etc). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dad3353 Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 You've not replied yet to the questions concerning PC or Mac..? What soft are you using..? A simple converter downloaded, or a video editing package..? Don't worry about the treddle for now, the crossbeams have to be properly skuppered first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JTUK Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Once you get it upto YT, I'd think they compress it. I'm using Realplayer to copy off and the videos are coming off arounf 60mb.. ( it takes a bit of playing around to get them playback onto a DVD sometimes) Understand about upload speed tho... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razze06 Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 The true difference in file size will be made by the frame size of the video. If it was shot in full HD (as stated above) it will be big, and no matter how many formats you change, it will remain big. You need to find yourself a converter software that allows you to change the size of the converted video. Some application will have some (advanced) setting where you can set the resolution (frame size) of the converted video. That's what HowieBass meant by resampling/rendering [quote name='HowieBass' timestamp='1412782104' post='2572001'] What's the frame size of the original video? If a clip of about 10 minutes needs a full gigabyte I'd guess it might be full HD? Thats 1920 x 1080 in 16:9 widescreen format. Try resampling/rendering it to something like 1280 x 720 or even 853 x 480 which should reduce the file size a fair bit. [/quote] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted October 8, 2014 Author Share Posted October 8, 2014 Soory Dad, you're quite right. Bog standard PC, reasonable amount of RAM, decent video card. For conversion, I have a home-use version of VideoPad Video Editor (NCH), Windows Movie Maker, and a trial version of Movavi. For playback, I have VLC Media Player (which also plays Flash), Quicktime, and of course Windows Media Player. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinyd Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 [url="https://handbrake.fr/"]https://handbrake.fr/[/url] is pretty good, and it's free and open-source so you don't have to worry about trial versions etc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 If you are uploading to YouTube unless you absolutely have to, in order to save on time and bandwidth, or unless YouTube doesn't recognise the format, don't convert the video. Youtube will automatically convert the video for you into a variety of different formats for all the sizes and devices that it supports. Every time you convert a video format you lose quality, so the fewer times this is done the better the quality of the video on YouTube. HTH. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HowieBass Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 Try this http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video_free/ which should allow you to downsize the frame size (and hence total file size) and try 720 frame height which is still excellent video quality and it should be under half the file size (and even less when converting to a compressed file format). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 [quote name='HowieBass' timestamp='1412786915' post='2572070'] Try this [url="http://www.any-video-converter.com/products/for_video_free/"]http://www.any-video...for_video_free/[/url] which should allow you to downsize the frame size (and hence total file size) and try 720 frame height which is still excellent video quality and it should be under half the file size (and even less when converting to a compressed file format). [/quote] All video formats are compressed. That's why you lose quality every time you do a format conversion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dad3353 Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 [quote name='Happy Jack' timestamp='1412785118' post='2572044'] Soory Dad, you're quite right. Bog standard PC, reasonable amount of RAM, decent video card. For conversion, I have a home-use version of VideoPad Video Editor (NCH), Windows Movie Maker, and a trial version of Movavi. For playback, I have VLC Media Player (which also plays Flash), Quicktime, and of course Windows Media Player. [/quote] OK, that's what I'm using, too. I've done a couple of trials, using a few short avi and mov files. I added an avi to Videopad (one may then edit if required, of course...) and export the sequence. There is a choice of formats, I chose flv. There is also a button for advanced options, where the rate of compression and sound can be modified. With default values, a 9Mb7 avi rendered to 5Mb. I changed the compression to '36' (default was '23'...); it then rendered to 1mb1. I got very similar results from the mov file. I did the same exercise using mp4, the rendered files were double the flv files. I didn't see any great difference in video quality, nor sound from any files (viewed with GOM Viewer...). I have to say, though, that the clips I used were not hi-res, just dumb shots with a video camera. I'd say that, at first glance, you've got all you need to reduce the file size (and therefore upload to Youtube...) without noticeable loss of quality; a medium tub of patience is recommended, however. I've not got that much spare, but I'm sure you'll find some. Take a small avi and try out a few values..? Hope this helps... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted October 8, 2014 Author Share Posted October 8, 2014 Outstanding work Dad. Thanks. I've got a rehearsal starting in 10 minutes (at which, bizarrely, I expect we'll spend a while watching videos of ... erm ... our last rehearsal ) so I'll drop back down onto this at a later stage. While I'm at it, thanks to all who have come up with information and suggestions - much appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dad3353 Posted October 8, 2014 Share Posted October 8, 2014 [sharedmedia=core:attachments:167485] Have a good one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyquipment Posted October 12, 2014 Share Posted October 12, 2014 Smaller file size = decline in quality You could try divx codec for avi Good little codec Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dad3353 Posted October 12, 2014 Share Posted October 12, 2014 [quote name='tonyquipment' timestamp='1413103451' post='2574846'] Smaller file size = decline in quality You could try divx codec for avi Good little codec [/quote] True (mostly...), but absolute quality is not always the top criteria. It's also a question of balance (quality against upload time, for instance; other criteria are available...). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linear Posted October 12, 2014 Share Posted October 12, 2014 Can I just reiterate what BigRedX said: unless the upload bandwidth of our internet connection is so low that it's taking an unacceptably long time for files to upload to YouTube, you shouldn't re-encode the files before uploading. YouTube will re-encode them to an appropriate size anyway once they are uploaded. If you're passing them around to be downloaded and played on computers etc, then yea, it makes more sense, although, personally, I'd just point people to youtube. If it's a one-off kind of thing, if you stick them up on dropbox/google drive I can re-encode them to H264/AAC at pretty much any size you want them to be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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