Hey guys, I'm trying to help a buddy of mine get the file size down on this mp4, but not lose any quality. So I'm basically looking for some good freeware to do so. I see post about using handbrake and things like that, but when I open the file in handbrake it says no valid title. Any help/suggestions would be great, thanks
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Convert mp4 to something with better compression
- Thread starter adiosk8
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What do you want the video to play on in the end? If you literally mean that you want to go from MP4 to a smaller file with NO loss of quality, then you have to explore other codecs ... perhaps DivX or something like that. But first make sure you can still use the file on whatever you want to play it on.
It does matter. MPEG-4 Part 10 (aka H.264) is probably the highest compression standard codec available. Like its older MPEG-4 sibling, H.264 is a standard part of QuickTime. H.264 produces files 1/4 of the size produced by the older codec. The older MPEG-4 standard is already pretty good. DivX is a non-standard offshoot of MPEG-4 which grew out of Microsoft's rejected draft proposal for MPEG-4. Ironically, Apple now sort of supports DivX. The alternative DivX codec, 3ivx, is now more of an alternative codec for standard MPEG-4. x264 is a non-standard clone of H.264 which claims to have extra functionality.
The thing that you have to understand is that higher compression increases the processor power required to code and decode the video. Choosing a non-standard codec means that your audience is limited to those who have the codec. If, however, you choose H.264, then virtually everyone who has iTunes [which includes QuickTime] installed can play your stuff.
It also depends on what you used to to convert to mpeg-4 to begin with and what raw file format the original was.
The more times you convert or compress the worse the quality it becomes.
The more times you convert or compress the worse the quality it becomes.
HandBrake is for converting DVD's.
iSquint is for converting movie files.
www.isquint.org
Other people made some valid points for you to start with, now you can download and start messing around with this program.
iSquint is for converting movie files.
www.isquint.org
Other people made some valid points for you to start with, now you can download and start messing around with this program.
However, if you don't want to use MP4 with or without H.264, I don't think you can actually use iSquint for much here... you'd need it's big brother, VisualHub, or ffmpegx, etc.
The only way to not lose any quality is to compress the original video file (not the MP4). If you don't have the original video file, then you will just have to compress the MP4 and deal with quality loss. Compressing an a file that has already been compressed will always result in lower quality and the file size difference may not be enough to justify the lose of quality.
VisualHub is probably the best but it isn't freeware ($24):
http://www.techspansion.com/visualhub/
Or maybe iSquint will be enough for you (freeware):
http://www.isquint.org/
I would use h.264 regardless of what program you use to compress it.
Edit: Oops, I took to long to reply. I tent to multi-task too much.
VisualHub is probably the best but it isn't freeware ($24):
http://www.techspansion.com/visualhub/
Or maybe iSquint will be enough for you (freeware):
http://www.isquint.org/
I would use h.264 regardless of what program you use to compress it.
Edit: Oops, I took to long to reply. I tent to multi-task too much.