Compressing videos to smaller file size.

[alphaae]

Looking to get some help from the pros.

I generally like using H.264 to export my files out for viewing. They tend to be pretty widely accepted and most people can watch it.

I do have one problem when I export them through Media Encoder the files are very big. I recently finished a simple video of about 7mins that came in at almost 500mb. To me, this seems very big and it is no way convenient for web viewing as the file is just too large.

What can I do or what setting should I be using to make this more accessible to people online.

Thanks for the help in advance.

[SAFEHARBOR11 · Accepted solution]

There is but one way to make a file smaller, other than making it shorter, and that is to encode using a lower bitrate. Period. If that lower bitrate has too much effect on quality, then consider also lowering the resolution, for instance from 1080p to 720p. At the same lowered bitrate, there are a lot less pixels to compress in 720p, thus it would have a better quality at same bitrate as the larger 1080p video.

Thanks

Jeff

[tklow]

I've seen this suggestion in many places, but you know, it doesn't really resolve the issue.

I regularly have to edit webinar recordings from Zoom webinar.  They are about an hour long 2650x1440 frames witih reasonable quality and the files are about 70-90 megs when I get them.  Certainly not suitable for a movie, but for a webinar with slides, it's very reasonable: the frame size is nice and large, and you can read the text on the slides just fine. The audio quality is clear enough for the purpose.

But, if I do ANY kind of edit in premiere pro and try to output again, I typically get a file of 900 megs down to as low as 750  megs.  That's about 10 times the original size.  Now, if it's just about bitrate, explain why this is the case when I choose the lowest possible bitrate setting (0.19) and the lowest frame rate (10). I'm using H.264. Obviously, the output file size is just not acceptable.  When I have a folder with multiple sessions and most of them are under 100 megs then I have a file that is 750 megs and all I did was blur out a single word on a slide, or add a quick title, or in some cases, I just trimmed a little off the front without making any changes or additions.

I've been battling this issue for a couple of years and really haven't found a suitable resolution. I now use other software to trim my videos and save without re-encoding, but this doesn't help if I have to make a small edit. There must be some way to get PP to output roughly the same file size as my original files? 

the only thing I found that works is to radically reduce the frame size, but then I have a much smaller video in which the slides cannot be read, and the file size is still 2-3 times the original size.

Of course, this issue is compounded by the grossly inaccurate estimated output size.  It's not unsual for PP to esimate my output size at under 100 megs then output a file 8 or 9 times that size.

[SAFEHARBOR11]

What format are the original small clips from the webinar - what is the file extension on them? Maybe run MediaInfo  on your file and post a shot of the results here.

They might be a proprietary format that is optimized for screen capture, which is meant for slides that are static most of the time, which could make the file size very economical. Versus Premiere being set up to export VIDEO with constant motion and changes.

Thanks

Jeff

[ams-ams]

tklow  wrote

I now use other software to trim my videos and save without re-encoding

Could you please mention the other software by name? Thank you.

[pathart08@yahoo.com]

Okay I want to lower the butyrate on a video export -  but on Adobe premiere 2018 cc I can't find the setting - the old versions had the settings right in the video tab i believe -  or I think it was Advanced tab?  i don't see anything now

[matt.mammola@cibc.com]

Well this is a stale post, but I've just come across it and I relate completely, and I wonder if there's been any updates. I do the same thing, I take video which is recorded by Zoom and I edit it ever so slightly, and I get a balooned file size. 

I've tried everything I could with Premiere and Media Encoder, and it just doesn't have the capabilites to produce low-file-size the same as Zoom. 

What i've found works, and I hate that I have to go to a separate software because of course it adds more steps to the workflow, is Handbrake. Handbrake is great at compressing file size. 

But I would LOVE any better solutions (doing it in adobe)

[GazLogan]

Totally agreeing.. I have tried everything to improve upon my Handbrake workflow and Adobe Media doesn't even come close.. Handbrake is smashing a 870mb file recorded with Screen casting software Camtasia into 94mb.. and with great quality.. whereas with Adobe media encoder I have tried changing all of the variables.. inclduuing VBR to CBR .. bringing the target bitrate right down to 5... changing the encoding settings to Soiftware.. and its still only getting it down to 400mb.. I would have thought Adobe media encoder could have matched a open source app but maybe therein lies the power of open source! 

[theoden]

I agree completely with Matt and Gaz, Adobe Media Encoder has real issues encoding small files. I've had this problem for many years and it's only gotten worse with recent releases. In one recent example I had an mp4 video recorded with Adobe Captivate. Short video so only 12MB. I edited with Adobe Premier and reduced length by 30%. Encoded with Media Encoder and it ended up at 178MB. Took it into Handbrake and now it's back to 25MB. Resolution has been the same throughout and bitrate also unchanged 

[jdfras]

The only way that I have ever solved this is to out put the file using Media Encoder as you would and then use Handbrake to compress that file. 

As an example a recent output was 290+MB down to 44MB.

Oh and Handbrake is free

[BukhariTorro]

I personally using ffmpeg via terminal (mac) to compressed mp4 file from media encoder and its really narrow down the size significantly.

[brittneyv8027346]

Same EXACT issue here. Minor edits to zoom videos and it BLOWS UP the size. Anyone found a fix that doesn't involve another software?

[Marina303696150zau]

I have EXACTLY this problem all the time, I have a 100 mb video, then export same with 0,19 bitrate, and the quality is unacceptable, but the file size is 5 times bigger!

[JoeFras]

So I created a preset that works for most of my applications, you are welcome to try it.  You can import this into Media Encoder.  Rename it as you see fit and or use it as a starting point.

Cheers!

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ncub2upiz2uf1cfwa4r7x/Joe-s-2Pass-Small.epr?rlkey=x6rpr7axsp8kbm44pfn...

[Marina303696150zau]

Thank you so much, will try it out!!

[marcybbbd]

I figured out how to do it!!!!  I went from 300+ MB to 30 MB.  In the Export screen after selecting the H.264 at the top and selecting the Preset you want, then select the video tab and scroll down until you get to the "Encoding Settings" section.  It defaults to Hardware Encoding which makes it go faster, but increases the file size.  When you choose Software encoding instead, it dramatically drops the files size to a happy 2 digit number.  Hope this helps!!!

[daves71240135]

Unfortunately, the latest version does not have this option to avoid using hardware... and still encodes at 3x the size of the original... so, why would I use a media encoder to make a file larger? Yikes!

[leactz]

This is still unaeptable, we pay trough the roof for Adobe CC, and they cant make hardware encoding work correctly? handbreak uses hardware encodig just fine. Adobe seems to ever fix the things that creators are actually in need of working coreectly! 

[Юлия30943691pchf]

Спасибо! Очень помогло!!!

[Yoonisadonis]

Import media. Make a sequence. Right click sequence and choose Sequence settings. Change resolution to 1920x1080. Set scale to 50% in Effect Controls. Export media and set bitrate to 2. Export.

[Estarno1]

I just made a quick tutorial about this issue! Link below, hope this helps you out. 

https://youtu.be/5j8BmjBrAyc

[thekyleshort]

Thanks so much for making the time to put this together. I'm curious if you ended up creating a workflow for editing in Premiere Pro, or happened upon someone who did manage to create a workable solution during your research. I'm currently eyeballs deep in a project involving 700+ videos of which at least half absolutely must be edited with some complex graphics, etc etc that demand Premiere Pro or similar. Thanks again and looking forward to hearing back from you!

[Estarno1]

I never found a very workable solution for editing in Premiere Pro while keeping file size around the same as the original. The closest I got was using the Adaptive Low Bitrate preset, or manually setting the bitrate to the lowest. But of course, that produces poor quality video compared to the original, and still not as small of a file size. 

[stefaughnan]

So helpful, thank you!

[Guest]

Ballooning of H.264 files when exporting after re-editing is a longstanding issue. For simple cutting and merging of existing H.264/mp4 clips, I found MPEG Streamclip to work well, without ballooning the file size on export. I also found this (presumably for Mac users only) about Quicktime:
https://help.vyond.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005667026-How-do-I-merge-two-or-more-videos-in-QuickTime...
Works great for me!