6 Video Compression Software Compared (2019)
Looking to impress your audience right away with a killer header or background video that plays at a thunderbolt speed on your website? We’re here to help you save your audience from getting on their nerves because of the tortoise-like video speed on your website! Read on to find out about the best video compression software professionals use to get this task done…
Is the sluggishness of background or header video speed on your website is becoming a great cause of concern for you? The sad part is – great things often don’t come without impediments. It’s not always that easy to impress the audience!
Optimizing video for the web is as important as image optimization. You have come to the right place to learn to how to compress video for web use. We’re going to talk about not only the benefits of web optimized video but also the best video compression software used to compress video for the web without losing quality.
Keeping up with the advanced and the best video compression software available to take your video speed on your website to the next level without losing quality may require a little effort. But it goes a long way!
As a web designer or a web developer, it is always your prime concern to create websites for your clients that are as user-friendly and SEO optimized as possible. You start looking for the best video compression software for web background, header video and more. Here at Templatetoaster website maker, It’s time to discuss the benefits of video compression s before we delve deeper into discussing the best free video compression software.
What is Video Compression?
Video Compression is a method to reduce the data which is responsible for encoding digital content of the video. Lesser storage and lower transmission bandwidth requirements, for a clip of video content, are the sole benefits of this reduction in data.
The information which isn’t necessary for the viewing quality of the video is removed during this process. Good video compression codecs don’t degrade the quality of the output video.
Different levels of compression can be applied to a video. Higher the level of compression applied, higher the savings in transmission bandwidth and storage space. But the sad part is the quality of the video is degraded or lower to some extent.
It is to be noted that the video compression software is based on codecs. Speaking technically, “codec” stands for compression/ decompression. It is an algorithm or a little piece of software which is responsible for making video size smaller.
Why video compression?
We understand that you’ve every legit reason to put up an impactful video out there on the website, be it a background video or a header video! Shooting internet speeds, HTML5 support, and video codecs make it tempting to use background videos and other videos and so the need to compress high-quality large size videos also arises! What’s the use of putting up a video which attracts no traffic?
Video Optimization for the web is crucial to make it SEO friendly. But, size and compatibility are massive problems you have to deal with. No frets. Optimum compression settings by using the best video compressor software will help solve this problem.
What are the advantages of using video compression software.
Video Compression tools are basically used:
- To create a file format which the system (to which you are about to put the video)
can understand. - To give the best user-experience to your viewers by making the video load speed fast.
- To get better ranking in search engines as a result of faster video load speed, a bonus point to increase conversions.
List of the best video compression software
- Hybrid
- Handbrake
- MeGUI
- Freemake Video Converter
- Any Video Converter Free Version
- Format Factory
Top Video Compression Software
There are much software which is available to compress the videos online as well as offline. Most of them work as mere converters which will certainly provide you a compressed file, but that output can’t be reliable most of the times. Compression in a real sense is called encoding/transcoding of a video file using Encoding software and related set of files.
With encoding software, you can control proper input and output for a video and hence can get reliable and desired results. Encoding software, which is free to use and adopted by most of the professionals are Hybrid, MeGUI, and HandBrake. These are feature-rich video compression software which comes bundled with a plenty of options and advanced controls to compress videos without losing quality.
Using these applications definitely, rules out the issue of the large size of the videos which often acts as a hurdle and can make you procrastinate using videos for your website.
No doubt, professionals look for the tools which can get the task done like a magic wand in hand along with an emphasis on output quality while cutting out the time spent on bulk video compression. On the other hand, a newcomer trying his hand in this new field may not be able to get acquainted easily with the advanced controls and settings.Here are some of our picks for video converters:
You can find a lot more tools on this dedicated forum for Video Encoding.
As we discussed earlier, it is very important to compress videos for web use. Here at TemplateToaster website builder, we are going to discuss the best video compression software, worth trying your hand at!
Video Compression Software Compared (2019)
| Best Vedio Compression Software | Handbrake | Hybrid | MeGUI |
| Usage Level | Beginner | Intermediate | Advanced |
| Setting up and Configuration | Easy | Medium | Hard |
| Learning Curve | Very Easy | Easy | Hard |
| Formats | Limited Support | Mostly Supported | All Supported |
| Dependencies | Included | Included | Need to be installed separately |
| Quality | Moderate | High | High |
| Compression Time | Less | Very Less | High |
| Memory Usage | Low | Moderate | High |
| GUI | Easy | Moderate | Tough |
1. Hybrid
A multi-platform QT based frontend which can convert almost every input to x264, x265, Xvid, and VP9. Along with this, audio streams are encoded to ogg, acc, mp3, flac and ac3 inside the following containers mp4, mkv, m2ts, mov, WebM, and avi. It comes with an integrated bitrate calculator. It has the ability to encode single title/ chapter. Packed with an array of features, it is definitely one of the best video compression software.
Pros:
- Hybrid tool supports x265, the latest codec in the market and works flawlessly.
- The 2-pass mode is available for x265, for better quality output video.
- A wide range of options related to filtering, resizing, cropping, chapter making, x264 etc. are available.
- The ability to encode files in batches helps save a ton of time in the process of encoding.
Cons:
- GUI can be a bit challenging for using advanced options.
- CLI is to be used for some customized encoding results.
- Linux version lacks support for major codecs such as x264, x265. However, XVID is supported.
2. HandBrake
HandBrake is an open-source video transcoder. It is one of the best video compression software available. It helps you to compress video for web background as well as header video in a few easy steps.
While we discussed the technicalities of video compression above, it’s not quite necessary to go deep into the complexities. Familiarization with the above terms would be sufficient for you to use HandBrake to compress the videos.
Pros:
- HandBrake is an open-source video transcoder.
- A plethora of formats and presets are available to use in this compression tool.
- This video compression software is free to use.
- It is termed as best for beginners.
Cons:
- Challenging Graphic User Interface.
- Advanced settings can confuse the beginner.
3. MeGUI
There is another video compression software which is not known to many, surprisingly! MeGUI is the most comprehensive GUI based MPEG-4 solution. It is a more advanced software for video compression and is not meant for those with little knowledge of video compression. MeGUI is a powerful video compression software made basically for professionals who want more control while compressing videos professionally.
Pros:
- Automatic detection of the input video as interlaced/ hybrid/ film/ progressive.
- Flexible processing and improved speed on multi-core systems.
- Powerful support with job-queue and in-place job editing.
- Auto Update feature to help ease the installation process and more.
Cons:
- Made for advanced users only. Not suitable for beginner users.
- Requires prior knowledge of video compression software and tools.
How to compress a video Step by Step with video compression software
For demonstration purpose, we’re going to show you, how to use Hybrid. We’ve chosen it over other video compression tools as it supports WebM format as well, which is not supported in HandBrake and MeGUI.
- Choose the source video by clicking Input Icon.
- Browse the input file to be compressed. Select and Open. It takes a couple of seconds to process and open the video depending upon the length of the video.
- Now Click Output Icon to save the Output Path and Name of the file.
- Now select Codec you want to use and then click on that codec tab as shown below.
- Choose the encoding mode as per the requirement:
- 1-Pass –The video file is processed in one go!
- 2-Pass –The video file is processed in two phases for better quality output
- Constant Rate Factor (CRF) –provides encoding at a fixed quality, size can’t be determined
- Average Bitrate (ABR) –An average bitrate is provided as per the desired quality, in contrast to constant bitrate in 1-pass and 2-pass mode
- Now select preset as per the desired quality, slower the processing, higher will be the quality. Level/Profile should be kept as shown below. You can save this preset for encoding more videos in future.
- Click on Crop/Resize tab to choose the desired resolution (Width x Height) for the video.
- Now go to Audio tab, Select Codec from the list of provided codecs such as AAC or any other encoder as you want. Select Bitrate or Quality options and other small options provided, as per the requirement. You can also provide any other audio source apart from the one form video.
- Now go to Config tab and click on Output option.
- Select Container settings to choose the format of file.
- Now click Path option under Config tab to provide default paths for Input, Output and Temp folders.
- Now under Jobs tab, Select the file from Queue and Click Play Icon to start encoding.
Recommended Settings for Hybrid:
Codec: x265/x264
Mode: Specific filezie/bitrate 2-pass
Bitrate: 300 kbps for a SD (480p) quality video and 750 for a HD (720p) quality video
Preset: Very slow
Container: MP4/WebM
Audio: Ogg format and 96 kbps at 48 KH
Which is the best Video Compression Software to reduce file size?
That was was all about video compression/encoding, Let’s now talk about the best video compression codec and format for the web. Browser support is the most crucial factor for web video. No doubt, MP4 is the most preferred video format for the web as it is supported by Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. Generally, there are 3 supported video formats in HTML5 which are MP4, WebM, and Ogg.
Lately, x265 has come up to set different standards in encoding, almost a breakthrough! It is validated by the two apex bodies- VCEG and MPEG. As a matter of fact, it is not widely supported by most of the web browsers but has hit the floors with almost twice the video compression efficacy as the previous standards offered. Unquestionably, the best one so far, people have been using it for video compression from a pretty long time now as it outweighs every other codec available in a matter of size and quality both! We hope it gets supported in future versions of almost all major web browsers.
Currently, We can opt for the best video format for web use based on the following browser support for various video formats:
| Factors | Chrome | Firefox | IE | Edge | Safari | Opera |
| MPEG-4 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| x264 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| x265 | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| MP4 | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| WebM | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
In a nutshell, it can be said that the best video format for the web is MP4 for background video as well as header video and it is supported by all the web browsers as listed above. Internet Explorer and Safari don’t support WebM and Ogg video formats.
Which software you use for video compression ?
To put it briefly, there are many video compression tools out there for beginners and advanced users. For professional use, Hybrid, MeGUI, and HandBrake definitely come handy. There is a whole lot of difference between the graphic user interface of the different video compression software. Beginners may find the complex GUI overwhelming while all the advanced controls can prove to be a goldmine for a professional!
Now that you know how to compress videos for your website, start designing stunning themes using TemplateToaster web design software and introduce beautiful videos to your website in minutes! The videos incorporated, will definitely make a sea change and will strike a chord with your website visitors. you may also read about Graphic design software.
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I followed you guide for Hybrid, but at the end (Now under Jobs tab, Select the file from Queue), I dont have any file in Job-Queue list?!
Fabulous explainer, Deepak. Thanks for all this work! I am set to try Hybrid on your recommendations …
By “MPEG-4” you mean the mpeg-4 video codec? That’s like…way worse than h264 isn’t it, in terms of compression? Why do you list MP4 as another row on your grid when that’s a container not a video codec? Wait and you list x264, that’s the *encoder* not the video codec 🙂
I use Wonderfox hd video converter factory for video compression. It’s quite easy to use and always work well.
Thanks for sharing
Thanks for the info. However asking, who has used VLC media player’s converter? You just select convert in option, select the video file and you’re good to go. Saw a youtube video of how to use it and it’s quite handy and easy. Compressed my video files about 20 times smaller and retained quality. Would like to have someone compare it with the above software.