Then, fire up HandBrake:Ĭlick File, and then select the video file you want to shrinkify. I usually plop mine temporarily on my desktop. HandBrake settings for shrinking/optimizing video files Well, fear not! You don’t need to understand all the fancy options to optimize your video files – you just need to click a few things, and you’re off and running. Now, when you fire it up, you’ll see one gajillion options, and you’ll probably freak out like I did. HandBrake is free software available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Of course, it’s hard to know what data rates and bit rates are actually good enough to maintain quality, but not so high that file size increases to Jupiterian proportions. The solution is to re-encode, or transcode, the video by using software that will also compress everything down to a reasonable video data rate and audio bit rate. That’s great, but a 6 minute video should never be 2.5GB unless you’re working on the next Hollywood blockbuster… Put on the HandBrake! This is exactly what most gizmos and mainstream video editing software spits out in order to preserve quality. Both those values are waaaay too high – unnecessarily high! Note that even though the length of this MOV video is only 6 minutes and 3 seconds, and even though it’s only 720p (1280 x 720 pixels), it’s still 2.5GB in size due to the video’s Data rate and the audio channel’s Bit rate. Well, if you check the video file’s properties, you’ll most likely see something like this: You’ll probably end up with something like a 6 minute video, but it takes up 2.5GB of space! Why so big? Then, you tell your easy-as-pie video editing software to spit out a video file to share with friends.

Let’s say you take a video, and do some editing. Fortunately, there is a free piece of software that lets you shrink and optimize all your vids in just a few quick clicks.

Normally, editing and even just compressing/re-encoding videos is really complicated. The video files saved by most devices – including smartphones – is usually not optimal in terms of compression and especially in terms of file size. Heck, even I started a YouTube channel!Įven if you’re not a “video author”, you still probably record videos of family, friends, important events, and so on.

Handbrake video compressor