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Bit #1: Reduce the size of a large video recording

There are a lot of graphical tools that let you reduce the size of a large video recording.1 In my case, they all didn't work, because I had broken frames in my video.

Long story short, just use the good old FFmpeg with one or more of the following options.2

Use the Constant Rate Factor (CRF) with a value between 0 (lossless) and 51 (worst):3

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vcodec libx265 -crf 28 output.mp4

Or use a specific bitrare (e.g., 800 kbit/s):

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -b 800k output.mp4

Or set a specific width (e.g., 360 px):

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "scale=-2:360" output.mp4

  1. I tried the tools suggested on Ask Different.↩

  2. I found a good collection of samples to reduce a video's file size with FFmpeg on Unix & Linux Stack Exchange.↩

  3. CRF Guide (Constant Rate Factor in x264, x265 and libvpx)↩

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