Compress 4K Video WITHOUT Losing Quality - FFmpeg Tutorial

[00:00] So, if you have a huge video file and

[00:02] you want to compress it without

[00:04] noticeable quality loss, you can do that

[00:06] with a single FFmpeg command. And in

[00:10] this video, I'll show you how to do that

[00:13] perfectly. So, for that, you will have

[00:15] to have FFmpeg, a command-line video

[00:18] processing tool, installed. I have a

[00:20] video on how to install it. It is very

[00:22] easy and straightforward. The link is in

[00:25] the description. So, once you have

[00:26] FFmpeg installed, you can just reduce

[00:29] the size of your video without

[00:31] noticeable quality loss in a single

[00:33] command. So, here is a video I have. It

[00:36] is 7 minutes long, and the size is 6. 23

[00:41] GB. So, let's open the command prompt in

[00:45] this directory so that I can execute

[00:47] command on this file. And let's type

[00:50] Let's see the details of this video.

[00:54] So, as you can see, it is using AVC,

[00:57] means Advanced Audio Codec. This is a 4K

[01:00] video, 60 FPS, and a audio with AAC

[01:04] codec.

[01:06] Bit rate is around 320

[01:09] kbps. So, I have prepared few command,

[01:12] and those commands come in handy based

[01:16] on your

[01:18] situation. Like if you have an Nvidia

[01:20] GPU then

[01:22] you'll use Nvidia encoder, which will be

[01:26] super fast. But if you do not have it,

[01:28] don't worry. You will use processor

[01:30] source

[01:31] uh coding power, and that is sometimes

[01:34] way better. Just a bit slow, but

[01:37] compression is way better than Nvidia.

[01:39] So, the first command is for regular for

[01:43] everyone. So, here as you can see, we

[01:45] are using lib

[01:48] uh 264

[01:49] codec. So, whatever your video file is,

[01:53] the output video will have a lib x264

[01:57] codec, which is very mainstream codec.

[02:00] And then it comes There comes a flag

[02:03] called CRF. So, here in CRF, the higher

[02:07] value means

[02:09] lower quality. I mean, more compression.

[02:13] So, if the value is 18, then you'll see

[02:16] no difference. But if the value is 28,

[02:19] then video quality may degrade a little,

[02:22] but the size will be reduced a lot. So,

[02:26] a safe point is 23. Then preset medium

[02:30] for a balanced encoding, and I'm

[02:33] copying the audio codec, not changing or

[02:36] anything related to audio. And the

[02:38] second command is if you want to have

[02:41] very small file size. And again, if you

[02:45] have Nvidia GPU, then you'll use H.264

[02:49] NVENC. Same encoding algorithm, but done

[02:53] with the GPU for faster encoding. But

[02:57] uh the CRF flag changed to CQ for

[03:00] Nvidia.

[03:01] Everything else is same. 23 for a medium

[03:06] compression, and preset before is also

[03:09] for medium.

[03:10] So, the value before and CQ

[03:13] changed for Nvidia encoding, and I did

[03:17] not

[03:19] change the audio encoding here still.

[03:22] But if you want to have more control and

[03:25] a resilient command, then you can use uh

[03:28] something like {hyphen} a, means AC.

[03:32] That means audio will be changed to AAC,

[03:36] and the audio bit rate will be 120 kbps,

[03:38] which is like standard. And you'll use

[03:42] some additional uh flag like pixel

[03:45] format you've 26 uh 240 pixel, and some

[03:51] checking like if there is an audio If

[03:54] audio exists, then do the audio

[03:56] processing. If not, then don't. So,

[03:58] those are uh commands you can use to uh

[04:03] reduce the file size without losing

[04:06] quality drastically. So, I'll go with

[04:08] the last command since I have an Nvidia

[04:12] GPU. So, by the way, uh the input file

[04:16] is here, for example, input.mp4. So, you

[04:19] can replace this with your file name and

[04:22] extension.

[04:23] And whatever you put at the last as file

[04:27] name will be name of your output video.

[04:31] So, my output video will be

[04:33] output_compressed.mp4.

[04:35] You will see if everything goes

[04:38] correctly. So, I'm copying this command.

[04:40] The name of my input video is input.mp4.

[04:43] Let's go to the directory. Let's rename

[04:45] it to input.mp4.

[04:48] And let's open the command prompt in

[04:51] this directory. And let's

[04:54] zoom in so that you can see the command

[04:56] and paste the command.

[04:58] So, currently, the video is being

[05:01] processed.

[05:03] As you can see,

[05:06] it is

[05:07] using my GPU. So, yeah, video processing

[05:11] is resource-heavy.

[05:14] If I

[05:16] would use the

[05:18] processor encoding, then it would take

[05:21] even more

[05:23] even more time to

[05:25] encode the video.

[05:28] So, let's wait for it to complete.

[05:32] The video compression is processed.

[05:34] Now, let's go to the directory

[05:38] and see what is the output video look

[05:40] like. The input video is around 6.23 GB.

[05:46] And the output video is 1.63

[05:49] GB. So, from 6 GB to

[05:54] uh 1.5 GB,

[05:56] 75%.

[05:58] Okay.

[06:00] So, 4:1 means from So, initially, if the

[06:05] video size was 6.23, now the video size

[06:08] is 1.63 with identical video quality.

[06:13] So, that is how you can easily reduce

[06:16] your video file size. And here I have

[06:19] used some additional flag like MOV flags

[06:22] plus faststart. So, if you stream or

[06:25] play the video, it will start super

[06:27] fast, which is very convenient. So,

[06:30] that's it, guys. Uh if you have any

[06:32] questions or any comment, feel free to

[06:36] put that in the comment section below.

[06:37] I'll be happy to reply and see your

[06:40] opinion. So, that's it for this video. I

[06:44] will add this to the comments in the

[06:45] description and also how to install

[06:47] FFmpeg. So, that's it for this video.

[06:50] Hope you have learned something. See you

[06:52] in the next video.