File size is always larger than source

There is only one solution to this and it is to ditch Media Converter and download the free software HandBrake.

Adobe really dropped the ball on this one. 

Hi,

After seaching online for an answer to this problem of edited video file sizes, I found this post. However it didn't really resolve the problem of why a 116Mb screen captured training video becomes 633Mb after a small edit in Premiere. So after I experimented exported twenty times, with tweaks in the bit rate and variable bit rate this is what I discovered.

I exported out of Premiere with the settings as:

Format:H.264

Preset: Match Source -Medium Bitrate

Then looked at the variable bit rate in original file and matched it roughly in the Bit rate settings with 2 passes.

This produced the 633Mb file.

Taking this file into Handbrake with settings:

Fast 1080p30 everything else as standard except I moved Average Bitrate in Handbrake to 3000.

Then guess what the output file went back to 192Mb with no visible loss of quality.

This all seems bizare and unnecesary in a professional piece of software however we got there after several hours of experimenting.

Hope this helps, as I am sick of people moaning about how when you edit a file it grows to 5 times its size despite taking something out! 😀

Have you tried not exporting the Audio? I found turning off audio when I don't need it somehow seems to fix this issue for me.

Bro in h.264 format the preset you should use should be any one of the android, vemio, YouTube, twitter. Choose any resolution you want.

IMP: use VBR pass 2. This allows only software encoding and compression as estimated. Bitrate should set to maximum of 1 or below.

Also select none in the metadata tab.

However I wouldn't recommend using AME for compression because they are too lossy but encodes are 2 times faster than other GUIs.

For good compression and quality, we need to tweek CFR, which is not given AME. Therefore use Hybrid or Handbrake to for compressed quality encodes by setting CFR from 22 to 26, profile-Main 10, level-4.0,preset -slow or slower.( I recommend to use Hybrid)

Welcome to 2019! Still no good answer on this topic. I know little of the advanced settings, but can attest that I also wind up with HUGE file sizes and it's been an ongoing issue for years.

A lot of times, I'll get files that people create through Camtasia or via webinar recording and they ask me to trim them down and add our corporate bumper. I'll end up with ridiculously large files, even if the vid is half the original length and I export with matching settings ticked. Especially true with webinar files since AME can't run at that low of a framerate. Webinars might be captured at 10fps. But even with a file at 25fps that I just worked on it was the same issue.

Weird workaround I've used out of desperation: upload to YouTube and then download that file since YT has good compression. I don't like this approach, of course, and would like to get better AME settings to render small files.

Doing highly compressed files creates unusable garbage that's worse than the original and still far larger. It's a mystery. I feel like a tech genius would have had a definite answer that's obvious to them. Hmm..

having this kind of problem. i have a 10 sec animation i created in Ae.

i need 10mb h264s. i have to make all kinds of sizes. no matter what i set the bit rate too.

i get a file 20 - 24 mb. witch i need to be 10 mb.

even though AME says the estimated size is.. 4 MB. so no idea whats happening.

I really wish there was an answer to this. I don't feel like when I cut half a video, and set output to medium quality out that it should have a larger file size. The video loses quality, and is way larger.

One thing that, for me, was causing exports to be larger than expected was the metadata sidecar file. Try changing the Metadata option "create sidecar file" to "none" and see if that makes a difference. The Metadata button is at the bottom of the Export Settings pane, and then the Export Options drop-down at the top has the options.

Not sure if this has anything to do with your issue, but I figured I'd throw it out there.

What screen capture software did you use? The bit rate of 0.25 is extremely low for HD video. When you take something that highly compressed and re-compress again, you are going to lose quality. File size is determined by bit rate, so if export bit rate is higher than the source, then yes the exported file will be larger.

Thanks

Jeff