The HandBrake software that I downloaded for free has been a big help to me in my business for compressing videos, so I thought I’d share it with you all.
Watch Video or Read Post, your choice:
I wanted to share a little tool that I’ve been using, a piece of software that I am really impressed with and use almost daily, and that is – HandBrake.
It is a video encoder and is completely free.
I use it mainly for compressing videos, large video files. You can compress them down to a smaller size, and it doesn’t affect the quality of the video which is wonderful.
So I have this installed on my computer, down here you can see the icon on my docking station. I wanted to demonstrate what you can do with it – it’s very simple so let’s dive right in.
Let me open up the software, here’s the module. I’m going to go ahead and click on the upper left-hand corner called source. I’m going to navigate to the area that I want to choose my video. I’m going to choose workshop1, and I’m going to open it.
So I’ve chosen the title and the source of the video that I would like to compress.
Now what I do is leave all of the settings by default. They have constant quality, the video codec, same as source, variable frame rate, all that – I’m just going to leave it as is because I have found that the results are good.
The RF at 20, constant quality – all that. . . it’s really good output, so I’m just going to leave that alone.
I want to make sure my destination folder is where I want it to be. Now, the name of the source video is called workshop1.mp4. When it’s finished compressing it will go to right here, on the desktop. Well, that’s the same filename, so I’m going to add a “c” because I’m going to indicate by the “c” in the title of the file, that it has been compressed.
So, I’m going to go ahead and click start. You’ll see at the bottom here that it is working – you’ll see a bar where it shows the progress and the estimated time of arrival is 15 minutes and 19 seconds.
It keeps going down showing you the progress of the encoding, the progress of the compression of the video. That’s really cool to know how long it’s going to take. Also, down here on my dock you can see there is a progress bar as well, and it will be a red line coming up as it’s close to finishing.
Here we see that the encoding is almost finished – the bar is almost to the end. Down here on the docking station the red bar indicates as well that it’s just about finished.
Then we can check on the video to see how much it has changed in size. I’m going to show you the original size of the video before I used HandBrake, and then the size of the video after using HandBrake, and then share the quality of the video as well.
Okay, we see that the compression has finished and we get a little message saying put down that cocktail. Your HandBrake queue is done, click Okay.
Then I want to show you the size of the original file, which is right here – I’m going to right-click, and click get info, and we see that the original file was 2.04 GB (gigabytes) that’s a huge recording- that was the original.
And the one that is compressed is 343 MB, that’s a significant difference - 343 megs as opposed to 2.something gigs . . . so a huge reduction in size.
Let’s click on it and check the quality. Here is the compressed video, and the quality of the visuals is really nice. The sound is excellent as well. This is fantastic, so it’s a way for you to decrease uploading time to YouTube, and not only that – if you haven’t had a YouTube account for a very long time, your file size uploads are limited. So, it’s a really handy tool.
HandBrake is good for Mac, it’s good for PC, and it’s completely free software that I use almost on a daily basis.
Hope to help. – Carol
P.S. Related video would be: Tools for Recording and Editing Videos – CamStudio and Camtasia
February 25, 2013 at 4:32 pm
Carol,
I had never heard of this software until watching your video.
We work very hard to keep all of our download files below 50MB Some times that is difficult with videos. I am going to check this out and see how much it will help with compressing the training videos for our membership site.
BTW, if you don’t mind please stop by my blog and let me know what you think about the new design.
Thanks for the information,
Clyde
Clyde wants you to check out…Market Like FOX News
February 25, 2013 at 4:34 pm
Hi Clyde,
So glad I can help – it’s a fantastic tool that really does help in reducing file size, yet keeping excellent quality. People need to remember to choose HD quality on YouTube, though, as that gives the best picture. :)
I’ll take a look for sure…
- Carol
February 25, 2013 at 5:31 pm
Very clean and tidy look, very nice!! :)
February 25, 2013 at 5:06 pm
Hi Carol,
Fantastic share. I wish everyone with large videos would use this tool. I use broadband Verizon and sometimes videos just chunk up and stall repeatedly. I think a smaller file size by compression helps. In fact, a lot of times I click away videos that break up continuously.
Thanks! Kater
Kater wants you to check out…Offline Business PLR Product with Mini Site & Graphics – Local Marketing Levers
February 25, 2013 at 5:34 pm
Hi Kater!
So glad you enjoyed it. :)
The video size may not be what is causing the problems. It may be due to bandwidth issues, what platform they are using, and your ISP…
If I am having issues, first thing I do is reboot (restart) my computer. Then, I will click on the video, walk away or go do something else in order to give it a chance to fully load. I always click that little tool looking thing, to choose HD for the best possible viewing experience, so the screen is crisp and clear. And, love seeing everything full screen.
I often have to wait several minutes for a big video to load, even when hosted by YouTube. Just the way things are, I suppose.
Thanks for stopping by to share your thoughts. :)
- Carol
February 26, 2013 at 4:44 am
Hey Carol
Agree on the reboot. Always the solution of choice for PCs. lol. I think there are different methods of “downloading” the video data too. I’m a bit rusty on this … something about streaming and not streaming video.
Kater wants you to check out…Offline Business PLR Product with Mini Site & Graphics – Local Marketing Levers
February 25, 2013 at 5:26 pm
This was a new software for me, also, Carol. Thanks for the value you give. I’m not making videos yet but hope to soon if all goes well. Have a great evening.
Ruth Clark wants you to check out…What Are You Afraid Of?
February 25, 2013 at 5:39 pm
Hi Ruth,
I’m so glad I could help, and as you say…When you start you can pull this out and you’ll know what to do. :)
Take Care,
Carol
February 26, 2013 at 4:02 am
Thanks for sharing this Carol. This would be a great help in all my videos. I will try to download and use it today. Thank you so much for this and have a great day! :)
February 26, 2013 at 11:29 am
Hi Cherrylene and you’re very welcome. Let me know if you have any specific questions so I can help if needed. :)
Have a wonderful day.
- Carol
February 27, 2013 at 4:30 pm
Thanks for the share Carol! I use something I purchased now, and this works just as well. Darn! It also helps reduce the size of the upload and streaming with Amazon S3. The cost with AS3 are low, but if you pull it down lower . . . :)
February 27, 2013 at 4:35 pm
Hi Gail!
You are very welcome! Yep, it’s awesome! I was going to use Amazon, but decided to use Google and just make sure I back up in several places.
Thanks for stopping by to share your thoughts. :)
- Carol
March 3, 2013 at 10:31 am
I love easy-to-use software so I’m off to check this one out! The less time I have to mess with learning the technical stuff the better. Thanks!
March 3, 2013 at 12:33 pm
Hi Debi!
You and me both! :) I think it really helps, and the best part is the quality is NOT compromised when making the video size smaller. Love it!
Have a great weekend.
- Carol