Compress a viode avi without lose quality

[miros84]

Compress a video avi without lose quality

It is possible to compress my movies recorded by my camara without lose quality?
Only 2 minutes video in HD is 500MB. It´s a lot I think.
Is there any way and some program that you can recomanded me?
The most important is not to lose quality and resolution.

 

[Wishmaster]

Yes and NO.
Anytime you compress anything you always loose quality.
When you compress a Video or Audio file it quite simply throws away pieces to make the file smaller. Some encoders do better than others but for the most part the difference will be hard to see. The idea is to throw out pieces the human eye can not detect or the human ear can not hear when compared to the original.
However, you will start noticing a degradation in quality if you start to compress too much. Some encoders just do not do thier job well and its always noticable.


Alot will depend on what you want to do with the file. But in general, x264 for video is a very good choice.
What bit rates to use so that it looks as good as the original will depend on the resolution you are working with.

AS mentioned I highly recommend x264.
There are 2 main GUIs for this codec. Handbrake and MeGUI.

In my humble opinion, MeGUI is the superior of the two but it comes at a price. Longer Encoding times and a very steep learning curve,
Handbrake on the other hand has a smaller learning curve and is a bit more straight forward and easier to learn.
Both however, do a excellent job. It just depends how much time you want to put into the projects and learning the ins and outs of the programs.

For reducing and storing you camcorder files, you may want to try a MP4 with AAC audio. This is a good choice as it looks and sounds very good, and is compatable with nearly everything. Even Android and Apple devices.

For encoding to DVD, you are better off using the original file for the conversion.
Also,compressing a file thats already been compressed multiplies the quality loss significantly.


YES, you can use your compressed files to create DVDs, BluRays, compress further, or even convert to another format. However, if the goal is to minimize quality loss aas much as possible, this is not a good idea and the original file is the best option.

 

[miros84]

Hi Wishmaster,
Thank you a lot for you explication. I want to compress a little because now 1 minutes is 250MB. 1 hour video will be 15GB
What I understand is your recomendation is to compress this video to mp4 using Handbrake encoding which is free?
Is there some program you recommened me or I can do it by Handbrake?

 

[Wishmaster]

There may be others but these are, IMO, 2 of the best. And yes, both are free.

Are these recorded in 1080P?

If so, you may try downsizing to 720P.
For example, you could try downsizing to 720 using a video bitrate of around 4800-5000 and use AAC audio with a bitrate of 224 (assuming its a stero source home movie)

This would knock that 500MB 2min file down to 75MB or so, and look very,very good. Or, a 1 hr. video at around 2.2GB

In general, I found that many 1080P sopurces can be downsized to 720P using generous settings and look nearly identical. To the point you would really need to pick out the difference frame by frame in many cases. It all depends on how small you want the file sizes to be.
If space is of no concern, stay at 1080P. If Space is a concern, and there will be many more video in the future, going 720P with generous settings may be ideal. The difference vusually will be quite minimal.