software Good video editor/compressor?

Hello,

I just spent around $100 on the Movavi video editor and compressor.

I'm not happy with them, they always want to save the files in huge sizes, much larger than the original file and it doesn't improve the quality, if I adjust to save the file in the original size - or smaller which was the point of buying the compressor - the quality suffers greatly.

I've seen good quality vids in small sizes so I'm wondering what is a good program to do this, I've seen others advertised out there but I don't want to shell out more of my money only to be unhappy again.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Matt
 
As for editors, the big ones are Avid, Resolve, Premiere Pro and Final Cut. Take your pick, any of them should be able to serve your needs. They all have some form of render engine. If you put in the right settings, you'll be able to achieve what you need.

As for converters/compressors, most of the ones out there are fine. ffmpeg is a popular converter. It'll compress if you know what you're doing.
 
Thank you for the info, sorry so long on my response I haven't been at a computer for a few days, I'll look into those editors.

Quick question tho, you said "It'll compress if you know what you're doing. " - not really sure what you mean. I thought with a compressor you just load the file, choose the output format and run the program.
 
Quick question tho, you said "It'll compress if you know what you're doing. " - not really sure what you mean. I thought with a compressor you just load the file, choose the output format and run the program.

That's kind of like saying, "I thought the editing program would edit the movie for me". Software only does what you tell it to do. Transcoding, much like editing, isn't as simple as saying, "Here's the input, output to this filename". Any piece of software which is that simple would be as useful as a wordprocessor that only let you use 10 point Times New Roman. It'd be great for those who didn't know any better, but if you needed a particular look or size, you're dead in the water.

ffmpeg is a command line program. Once you figure it out, it's amazing. There are front ends that can help.

Personally I just use the encoder with whichever editing program I'm using.
 
That's kind of like saying, "I thought the editing program would edit the movie for me".

How so? Editing would involve specific cuts, sound additions, etc. I'm only wanting to do 1 thing - compress the video.

Software only does what you tell it to do. Transcoding, much like editing, isn't as simple as saying, "Here's the input, output to this filename".

Am I trying to "transcode"? Is that another word for compressing?

Any piece of software which is that simple would be as useful as a wordprocessor that only let you use 10 point Times New Roman.

Sorry, that reference is lost on me.

It'd be great for those who didn't know any better, but if you needed a particular look or size, you're dead in the water.

The only look I want it to have is the look it started with, as for wanting a particular size, yes of course, I want it smaller. Problem is whenever I set it to a smaller file size the quality goes down.

ffmpeg is a command line program. Once you figure it out, it's amazing. There are front ends that can help.

Command line? That sounds pretty involved. What are "front ends"?

Personally I just use the encoder with whichever editing program I'm using.

I tried just using the editor and setting the file size to what I want - same thing happens.

I'm thinking I should explain, it seems most of you here are pretty experienced with this stuff, I'm not. I'm just a regular joe who wants to compress some large movies to sizes that won't fill up my hard drive to the point where I can only fit 7 or 8 movies on a 500Gig drive.

I've seen lots of 90 min films compressed to 700mb or less and still look good, that's all I'm trying to do.
 
The only look I want it to have is the look it started with, as for wanting a particular size, yes of course, I want it smaller. Problem is whenever I set it to a smaller file size the quality goes down.

That's pretty much how it works. As a general rule of thumb, to have a smaller file size, you need to remove information.... resolution, bitrate.. that combined with math/compression (codecs). It's not really that simple, but that's the jist of it. The trick is to know what is the best tool to use for the particular circumstance and what settings can be pushed to reduce the size while keeping a decent the final result.

I'm thinking I should explain, it seems most of you here are pretty experienced with this stuff, I'm not. I'm just a regular joe who wants to compress some large movies to sizes that won't fill up my hard drive to the point where I can only fit 7 or 8 movies on a 500Gig drive.

I've seen lots of 90 min films compressed to 700mb or less and still look good, that's all I'm trying to do.

It's part technical skill, part art to achieve what you're trying to do. If it was as simple as pressing a button, filmmakers wouldn't have to spend a bundle for a professional to get a great result. Having good tools help, but knowing how to use those tools is more important. Kind of like driving.

To get you a chunk of the way there, set a resolution you can live with, a bitrate that looks decent to your eye and a the best codec your hardware can run. If you can use the h.265, you'll get the smallest files for the video quality, but a lot of players either don't support it or still struggle with it.

To get to a 700mb range for a 90 min piece of media, you're probably looking at a resolution of 480p, bitrate of slightly less than 1mbps, the longest iframe you can set with a h.264 codec and you're going to struggle to get something that looks good on most devices.
 
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