---
title: 'How to Compress Video without Losing Quality | Handbrake Tutorial'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=CXNKx6_PsT8'
video_id: 'CXNKx6_PsT8'
date: 2026-06-16
duration_sec: 0
---

# How to Compress Video without Losing Quality | Handbrake Tutorial

> Source: [How to Compress Video without Losing Quality | Handbrake Tutorial](https://youtube.com/watch?v=CXNKx6_PsT8)

## Summary

This tutorial demonstrates how to compress large video files using Handbrake, a free and open-source tool. It covers installation, basic settings, and shows a real example reducing a 1.39 GB file to 25.9 MB with good quality.

### Key Points

- **Tool Overview** [0:09] — Handbrake is free, open-source, and available on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
- **Installation Note** [0:39] — On Windows, you may need to install the .NET 8 runtime even if you have a later version.
- **Default Preset** [1:28] — The default preset 'Fast 1080p30' works well for most users.
- **Web Optimized Option** [1:35] — Check 'Web Optimized' to enable immediate streaming of the MP4 file.
- **Frame Rate Setting** [1:46] — Set frame rate to 'Same as Source' to maintain original smoothness.
- **Compression Result** [2:18] — The original 1.39 GB file was compressed to 25.9 MB with good quality.

## Transcript

Today we'll look how to compress video
files. This can be a very important step
when uploading your video to a social
media platform with a file size limit.
The tool we'll use is called Handbreak.
I'm here on the website. It's
Handbreak.fr. I'll leave a link in the
description below. It's a free and open
source tool with a great reputation. And
best of all, it's available on all major
platforms, Windows, Mac, and Linux. I'm
on Windows, so let's install it for
that. Here, I'll click download
Handbreak 1.92 installer, and I'll click
on the file name here. I'll save it to
my computer. Now to install it, I'll
just double click on the executable
here. I'll give it permission to install
and I'll click finish. Now to run
Handbreak, I'll just click the icon
here. And you can see on Windows I get
this message about installing thenet
runtime. So I'll press a button that
says download it now. And what I found
is that you have to install the version
8 runtime of.net even if you have a
later version. So I'm going to download
this installer. I can see it's from
microsoft.com. I'll press save and let's
install the net 8. I'll press install.
And when it's all done, I'll press
close. Now, if I go back to Handbreak
and run it, it actually starts. So,
let's open up the file we want to
convert. We can open up a batch of files
here, but I just want to do one. I could
drag it onto this middle area, but I'll
just click open video files here, and
I'll go to my temp folder. Now, I have
this movie file here that I want to
compress, and it's actually 1.39 GB. So,
let's see how small we can get this.
I'll press open.
And now, we have the different settings
we can use to compress it. Now, the good
news is we can pretty much just use the
default settings. The main preset here
is fast 1080p 30, but you can choose
other ones if you want, but I'm just
going to leave it like that. You can see
the format will be MP4. I'm going to
click web optimized. That means the MP4
file can be streamed immediately when
someone views it on the web. There's
other options here on the tabs you can
choose to adjust if you like. Under
video for frame rate, I just like to
choose the top option, same as source,
but you can make it lower if you want.
Let's go back to the summary. Down here
under save as, we can choose the
destination. Let me click browse. I'll
put it in the same folder here. I'll
call it astronauts compressed.
I'll press save. One cool feature is
that you can choose what Handbreak will
do after it's finished running. You can
make it close itself or even log off
your computer, but I'm just going to
have it do nothing. And now I'm going to
press start encode. So it's going to
start compressing our file. You can see
the elapse time down here. And now we
have our compressed file output here.
And you can see it's only 25.9
megabytes. And when we run it, the
quality looks great.
This would be perfect for posting
online. So check out this tool at
handbreak.fr.