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lukehedger/ffmpeg-compress-mp4

Last active June 18, 2025 09:58
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Compress mp4 using FFMPEG
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ffmpeg-compress-mp4
$ ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vcodec h264 -acodec mp2 output.mp4
@Dinesh6777
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Dinesh6777 commented May 24, 2025 •
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Here is the format using latest encoding algorithms h265 and mp3. It's around 15% better than h264.

  • Good quality(reasonable)
    • ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -s 1280x720 -c:v libx265 -preset medium -acodec libmp3lame -y output.mp4
    • 2.45 GB 131MB
  • For Best quality remove scaling paramater "-s"
    • ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx265 -preset medium -acodec libmp3lame -y output.mp4

@DamonTsang986
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DamonTsang986 commented Jun 18, 2025 •
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Wouldn't it be much easier to use video compressor software? There are quite a few wonderful and high quality video compressors out there.

ffmpeg is video compression software (among many other things), as far as I can tell the only difference is that you run it from a command line instead of a GUI, and it's free.

Agreed. But for those who are not skillful in coding and programming, a software with simple GUI, especially when it's free, would be much easier to use.

@lfuelling
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Wouldn't it be much easier to use video compressor software? There are quite a few wonderful and high quality video compressors out there.

ffmpeg is video compression software (among many other things), as far as I can tell the only difference is that you run it from a command line instead of a GUI, and it's free.

Agreed. But for those who are not skillful in coding and programming, a software with simple GUI, especially when it's free, would be much easier to use.

But you will learn way more from using ffmpeg (which you would anyways with the GUI, just with extra steps, and probably some adware, or a paywall too).

@DamonTsang986
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Wouldn't it be much easier to use video compressor software? There are quite a few wonderful and high quality video compressors out there.

ffmpeg is video compression software (among many other things), as far as I can tell the only difference is that you run it from a command line instead of a GUI, and it's free.

Agreed. But for those who are not skillful in coding and programming, a software with simple GUI, especially when it's free, would be much easier to use.

But you will learn way more from using ffmpeg (which you would anyways with the GUI, just with extra steps, and probably some adware, or a paywall too).

Agreed, from the aspect of learning.

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