Large video files are slow to upload and download. One of the most popular tools that can significantly shrink the file size without losing quality is Handbrake. It is popular due to three reasons:. It can convert video from nearly any format, e.g.wmv – Windows Media Video File,.avi – Audio Video Interleave File,.m4v,.mov, etc. It is free and Open Source. It works on Windows, Mac and Linux This tutorial illustrates how to compress a video file for the web on a Windows machine.
The sample file I used to compress was called WL-Video.wmv and its original size was 39.0 MB. After compression the file size was down to 4.40 MB. The compressed video format is MP4 as it is the most supported video format on the web. Depending on your original video file, following the instructions in the tutorial, the file size may still be reduced if your video file is already MP4 format. Download and install Handbrake if you do not have it. Download Handbrake at.
Double click the downloaded file to install Handbrake by following the instructions on screen. Compress videos 3. Launch Handbrake. Do not be put off by all the buttons and options available – you usually only need to use a few of them.
Click Source Open File to select the video you want to compress. In this tutorial, I select WLVideo.wmv and then click Open. You can see the original size was 39MB. In Handbrake, under Destination you can decide where the compressed file is saved by clicking Browse.
By default, it is saved in the same folder where the original file is. You can change to other location if necessary.
You are required to provide a name for the compressed file. For Output Settings, choose Mp4 if it is not selected and select Web Optimized.
Click on Video and make sure that H.264(X264) is selected. Click Start to compress the video. The green Startbutton will become red Stopbutton until the compression is complete. When it is back to green. You are ready to view the compressed video. The original video file was reduced from 39.0MB to 4.40MB.
The video compressor support variety of video formats and is compatible with Linux, Windows OS, and Mac. In Output settings, users get multiple options to manage output parameters, apart from that you can change the percentage of video quality, codec, video FPS and more for optimization.
The compressing process for this small file took around 20 seconds. If it is a very large file, it can take much longer to compress. Note: This tutorial aims to introduce the basic features in Handbrake. Handbrake has many more features which allow you to change the level of compression (e.g. Setting average bit rate (kbps). In addition, you can easily optimise a video for different devices including ipod, TV or Android tablet. If you would like to learn more about videos and advanced features in Handbrake, here is a complete Handbrake guide:.
With version 3.0.1, Compressor joins the ranks of advanced, speedy video-compression tools such as Sorenson and ’s Cleaner 6.5. Compressor 3.0.1 offers a simple setup for distributed rendering and nearly flawless transcoding to ’s new ProRes 422 codec. The program now has the tools needed for a majority of compression tasks: third-party plug-in support for professional encoding operations, filter capability for on-screen timecode burns and watermark protection, and changing a video ’s aspect ratio or frame rate during compression. In addition, Compressor 3 sports a full-blown interface makeover and enough engineering refinements to make even diehard fans of other compression applications take note. Settings galore With more than 100 presets for various devices, Compressor now lets you customize your settings to fit any need, even custom sizes for projects such as video Web banners, presentation graphics, or digital signage. You can even reuse settings from a previous rendering session via the new History palette. In addition, Compressor 3 lets you simultaneously process multiple versions of the same video: for the, the, the Web, and even BluRay and HD-DVD formats, all in the same batch.
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The program ’s new plug-in architecture lets developers create increasingly dynamic encoding tools. Compressor 3, coupled with Telestream ’s Episode Pro plug-in, offers broadcasters drag-and-drop encoding for various broadcast formats such as the MPEG program stream, the transmission format that broadcasting networks use to deliver content to your TV set. This simplifies delivery in the ever-growing tapeless broadcast-production market. Version 3.0.1 has several new features. Automatic Center Cropping lets you crop widescreen video directly into the 4:3 format common to TV and or define one of the five common letterbox formats for your output. In addition, the new Pixel Aspect pop-up menu in the Geometry pane of the Inspector window allows you to define a specific pixel aspect ratio to conform to your output media file during compression. Production of 5.1 surround sound is greatly enhanced in Compressor 3.
You no longer have to define speaker placement in other applications or use DVD Studio Pro to properly program channel settings for surround sound and audio compression settings. However, since the Mac Pro ’s optical audio port currently supports only stereo output, monitoring surround sound requires another application and third-party audio cards ($300 and up) to correctly hear all channels of the mix. Transcoding between formats is easy; Compressor 3 ’s built-in presets let you convert footage from heavily compressed, CPU intensive HDV format to the less-compressed DVCPro HD or ProRes 422 codecs. This gives you greater real time playback and effects capabilities in. While not quite achieving the quality of AJA Video ’s Kona or Blackmagic ’s DeckLink video-capture cards, Compressor ’s conversion capability does offer a fast, cost-effective way to transcode content, a real plus for people with older PowerPC Macs who can ’t capture HD directly into the new ProRes codec. The program ’s new Optical Retiming function, derived from ’s , lets users change a video ’s base frame rate.
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I used this feature to convert 1080 60i HDV (1440 by 1080 pixels) to 720p24 DVCPro HD (960 by 720 pixels). While the conversion from interlaced to progressive was cause for concern, Compressor handled the cross-conversion faster and with higher-quality results than I expected from an exclusively software-based procedure. Such conversions lets you create smaller files for DVD playback (with fewer frames) or convert your 1080i content for playback within the smaller 720p format (smaller files) frame size, a common technique for producing high-quality HD files for a laptop-based presentation. However, this process can create an inconsistent order of duplicate frames when converting 24 frames-per-second (fps) content to 30 or 60 fps. A similar problem exists in ’s when mixing frame rates in the Open Format Timeline.
Watermark protection Adding filter adjustments to your video as part of the final output is easy in Compressor 3. One example is placing a professional looking watermark on your video, the most visible form of copyright protection. In addition, Compressor 3 now allows you to embed that same copyright information as metadata in your output Rendering magic Overall, rendering in Compressor 3 is remarkably fast when using the default compression settings. For the majority of users, deviating from the defaults is not really necessary.
However, changing any of the settings to “Best ” when resizing or retiming your video engages the program's optical flow functionality, and can greatly increase the rendering time of your project. Creating multimachine network rendering requires the included AppleQmasterNode software (in the Extras folder on the Install disc). The new one-step render setup, called AutoCluster, allows you to create a render farm on a lone multiprocessor Mac or distribute that processing across several computers with a single software license. Motion and LiveType timeline elements sent directly from a timeline without first rendering within FCP will increase Compressor ’s render times and frustrate users who forget that those elements need to be rendered before compression can begin. Uncompressed video files offer the fastest compression times because the CPU doesn ’t need to first decompress a clip prior to applying new compression to each frame. Compressor 3.0.1 is a welcome upgrade from the previous version, and it delivers the fastest render times on multiprocessor Intel Macs. Has added a stylish new interface and simple render-management tools that augment the program ’s processing power.
The History palette, which allows you to manage or confirm previous settings, and the optical flow features are both destined to become user favorites. is a -based consultant in HD and Film production, and he ’s the technical chairman for HD Postproduction for the. This story, 'Compressor 3.0.1' was originally published.