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I have many videos that I want to compress. I've tried 7z. But it could only marginally compress a 188 MB video to a 184 MB archive.

Are there any better available alternatives??

I'm willing to start with lossy compression, because I am not particularly uncomfortable with a wee-bit quality quality loss. If the quality loss is too much, then I would try the lossless compression.

I am running Windows-7 32-bit.


EDIT: The following information bytes may help you guide me to a good answer:

  1. I checked out the codec details using MediaInfo. In short, it's using the AVC codec. In full, it's like this: 372 Kbps (350 Kbps), 550*412 (4:3), at 25.00 fps, AVC (NTSC) ([email protected]) (CABAC/3 Ref Frames). But I must confess...I can't seem to make much sense of this full detail.. :)
  2. I tried Handbrake. But it ended up increasing the video file's size by 3x instead of compressing it! But I must also add that with Handbrake, I only tries using it to transcode to MKV & MP4. No other setting (like frame size) was changed in this transcode exercise through Handbrake.
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  • Depends on the codec of the video. If the video already has a good compression, then I'm afraid you won't be squeezing more out of it. Commented Jun 7, 2016 at 15:48
  • Another consideration is quality. Are we talking about lossless compression here – or would it be OK if "smaller file size" comes at the cost of some quality loss (e.g. less resolution, or "JPEG-like compression")?
    – Izzy
    Commented Jun 7, 2016 at 19:53
  • @MarioWerner I checked out the codec details using MediaInfo. In short, it's using the AVC codec. In full, it's like this: 372 Kbps (350 Kbps), 550*412 (4:3), at 25.00 fps, AVC (NTSC) ([email protected]) (CABAC/3 Ref Frames). But I must confess...I can't seem to make much sense of this full detail.. :) Commented Jun 8, 2016 at 18:29
  • @Izzy Could you please elaborate or guide me to a link which could make me understand the difference between the compression techniques? Commented Jun 8, 2016 at 18:30
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    @Izzy Thanks for the wiki section link! I think I should try both...because I am not particularly uncomfortable with a wee-bit quality quality loss. Let me try both. If the quality loss is too much, then I would try the lossless compression. Commented Jun 9, 2016 at 16:39

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Well If you want to resize or use lossy compression there is Handbrake, You might like it If you want to compress raw videos, like screen capture. Otherwise modern video codecs are already capable and there is high chance your video is as compressed as it could be, without loss of quality.

Hand brake can compress, i.e. either resize or use better codecs, .mp4 for high compression.

Note that resizing video will have a significant decrease in size but also a decrease in quality. thus you might want to experiment the correct ratio till when the quality is acceptable for you.

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  • Hi! I tried Handbrake. But it ended up increasing the video file's size by 3x instead of compressing it! Commented Jun 8, 2016 at 18:15
  • @beck2ham: You need to specify target bitrate using -b option. The video is variable-rate, so it is safer for quality reasons to leave framerate unchanged. Here's command line options that reduce size by 30% or so: HandBrakeCLI -i example.mp4 -b 200 -2 -w 400 -l 300 -o smaller_example.mp4 If you are not using command-line version, then that's video bit-rate 200Kbps, 2-pass encoding, width 400 height 200. This leaves audio as-is (you could also reduce audio bitrate, but give nature of the content, reducing video size/quality has less noticeable effect than reducing audio) Commented Jun 11, 2016 at 17:36
  • @Aditya: I suggest adding the command line example (or other notes from the comment) as an example to show how Handbrake can help solve OPs problem in more detail. Commented Jun 11, 2016 at 17:41
  • @beck2ham: Slightly more aggressive settings can get around 50% smaller files, and the quality seems OK to me: HandBrakeCLI -i example.mp4 -b 140 --ab 48 -2 -w 400 -l 300 -r 12 --pfr --mixdown mono -o smaller_example.mp4 - that's 140Kbps video, 48Kbps audio, 2-pass encoding, 400 x 300, target framerate 12fps (setting that as max rate), and setting audio channels to mono (getting relatively better quality for lower bitrate at expense of no more stereo) Commented Jun 11, 2016 at 18:48

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