Video compressor: a smaller file you can inspect

Use a video compressor with a clear delivery budget

Start with the copy your viewer needs

A video compressor is useful when a finished edit is too heavy to send, review, or store as a viewing copy. Start by identifying that copy’s purpose. A client checking narration on a phone needs different detail from an editor inspecting small text on a large display. Keep the original master separately. Give the video compressor the original export each time you compare settings, so successive tests do not accumulate damage.

This video compressor handles one playable clip at a time, up to sixty seconds and one hundred decimal megabytes. Choose a preset to set both a size budget and a maximum frame dimension. An optional target in megabytes replaces the percentage budget. The video compressor reports the actual result after encoding; the target is an aim, not a guaranteed attachment limit. Check your destination’s current limit yourself before sending.

Choose a video compressor preset by what matters

The video compressor starts with Balanced: it aims for half the source file’s size and limits the long edge to 960 pixels. More detail aims for three quarters of the source size and allows a 1280-pixel long edge. Smaller file aims for thirty percent and limits that edge to 640 pixels. These are starting budgets for the video compressor, not promises of a particular visual score or measured percentage saving.

For a caption-heavy reel, run the video compressor with More detail first and read the smallest words at normal viewing size. For an informal motion review, Balanced may be sufficient. Smaller file is useful when rough composition matters more than fine texture. The video compressor never deliberately enlarges a smaller source. A portrait clip remains portrait; a landscape clip remains landscape. Slight rounding keeps encoded dimensions even without cutting away the subject.

How a video compressor turns megabytes into a budget

Separate an estimate from an actual measurement

A video compressor divides an approximate file budget across the clip’s running time. For a planning example, one megabyte spread over ten seconds allows roughly 0.8 megabits per second before audio and container overhead. Longer videos need more total data for the same average bitrate. The video compressor reserves room for audio when that option is checked, then requests a video bitrate within its supported range. Those numbers describe a budget, not the quality of every frame.

Enter your own megabyte target when a percentage is inconvenient. This video compressor keeps the selected preset’s resolution, so changing the custom target does not silently change the frame setting. Extremely small budgets trigger a warning when the minimum video bitrate cannot fit. The video compressor still labels an oversized result honestly. Leave room below your destination’s limit, download the result, and compare the actual size with that limit before attaching it.

Judge a video compressor result while the scene moves

Check the details that carry the message

Pause-and-zoom inspection can reveal lost texture, but a video compressor also changes how detail holds together over time. Watch hair, grass, smoke, water, and fast camera movement while the scene plays. Check whether a face remains recognizable and whether small labels remain legible. In the Sintel excerpt, compare wing contours against the background. The video compressor’s smaller frame must still communicate the action; a low byte count alone is not a successful result.

If the result looks muddy, return to the original in the video compressor and choose More detail or a larger target. Reusing an already compressed download can compound visible loss. Avoid promising yourself “no quality loss”: this workflow re-encodes the picture and can discard information. The video compressor is designed for a practical viewing copy. Keep your high-quality master for archival storage, later color work, and any further production edits.

Know what the video compressor keeps in the export

The video compressor can include playable source audio or create a silent result. Leave audio enabled when narration, dialogue, or timing cues are part of the review. Play the downloaded file from beginning to end and listen for unexpected silence or a clipped ending. The video compressor does not preserve a surround mix, multiple selectable audio tracks, or separate subtitle tracks. Burned-in captions remain visible because they are already part of the picture.

This video compressor selects an available browser recording format and tells you whether the download will be MP4 or WebM. Renaming a WebM file to MP4 does not convert it. Confirm the destination accepts the actual format. The video compressor captures the export at up to thirty frames per second; it is not a frame-accurate archival transcode. Use a standard SDR source, since this workflow does not preserve HDR metadata or guarantee the original color pipeline. Check browser recording format support.

Keep the video compressor open until it finishes

Your selected file is read locally by the video compressor. It is not sent to an SI rendering job, and this utility needs neither an account nor render credits. Loading the public sample downloads that reference to your browser. Compression takes approximately the clip’s playback duration, plus decoding and finalization. Keep the video compressor tab visible while it works. Switching away can interrupt the browser’s drawing schedule and stops this export rather than offering an incomplete file.

Use Cancel compression if you need to change direction. The video compressor keeps the source ready so you can adjust the budget and start again. Changing a setting removes the previous result from the comparison, preventing an old download from masquerading as a new one. Download a result you want to keep before changing settings. Reset clears the current video compressor workspace; it does not delete the original file on your device.

Finish the video compressor workflow with a viewing check

Before sharing a video compressor output, compare five things: file size, framing, readable details, audible content, and the ending. Use the screen size your recipient is likely to use. A result can be technically playable yet fail its communication job if a tiny caption disappears. Keep a descriptive filename and the original alongside it. Record the chosen video compressor setting when a collaborator may need to reproduce the same review copy later.

For the sample, save the linked credit with any version you redistribute and describe your compression changes. For your own work, finish captions and framing before using the video compressor on a delivery copy. Use the related subtitle guide when words are hard to read, or the aspect-ratio converter when the shape itself is wrong. This video compressor handles the file-weight decision after those edits. It does not crop a landscape story into a portrait composition.