Handbrake - Free Video Compressing Software

[Chris]

This week I came across an impressive free video compressing software called "Handbrake" (Windows & Mac). I was able to compress a 2 Gigabyte .mpg video of a wedding to a 155 Megabyte .mv4 video with reasonable quality before sending online. "Handbrake" comes with some free filters for cropping the sides of the video and applying sharpening. It worked a lot better than the paid for video editing software I have. It's more practical to use a local program compared to the online video compressing websites out there.  To keep it simple you can just use the ready made presets.

Handbrake Video Compressor
handbrake.fr/
handbrake.fr/downloads.php

YouTube Tutorial
www.yout-ube.com/watch?v=nnipCQPd0fw


Kind regards
Chris 

[pontiac1940]

Chris
Thank you! 
I want to share videos on occasion and invariably they are too large to email, so dump them into DropBox and share the BD link.
This looks like a good program and i am going to download it right now. 
Thanks, 
Clive 
 

[pontiac1940]

Chris
Nervous me. 
I assume this is okay to do. 
Thanks
Clive

[Chris]

Hello Clive. I installed this without any problems. Basically "Net Desktop Runtime" is ready made legit Microsoft code that developers use. (More info here: www.majorgeeks.com/content/page/what_is_microsoft_net.html)

Once you load a video into "Handbrake" you can test the "Fast 1080p" preset with Compression Factor RF 22. It may be all you need. For greater compression, you can use the preset "Very Fast 1080p" with compression factor RF 24. In the video tab, the greater the RF number the greater the compression at the expense of some quality. You can change the RF compression factor until you get the file size/quality you are happy with. Changing just 2 points can make a big difference.

Online Manual:
handbrake.fr/docs/en/1.5.0/

Adjusting Quality Control:
handbrake.fr/docs/en/1.5.0/workflow/adjust-quality.html

Under the filters tab, applying USM (Edge) sharpening or Lapsharp (Surface sharpening) will increase the file size. In most cases, sharpening is not needed.


Kind regards
Chris

[pontiac1940]

Thank you Chris
Appreciate your assistance. 
I will test drive it tonight. 
Clive

[pontiac1940]

Chris
This is fabulous. Handbrake just converted a 58 MB video to 18 MB and I can't see any practical reduction in quality. 
I take a few videos and often have to put even 30-second clips into Drop Box to share via email (vs Facebook). In this example I can now email mail it as an attachment.  
Thanks,

Clive 

[Tina B]

I have been using handbrake for about a year and it works great. I was able to compress videos that were made for church services so they could be put on the church website very easily.