Hey guys I need a little help. I have a .mov file that is about 40 or so megs and I want to compress it down to about 20 so I can email it. I am on a Mac. Anything native or free I can use?
If .MOV is similar to .JPG the file is already compressed. As a result any increase in "compression" will come at the price of decreased quality in the video. In simple terms a 144 line .MOV will take up much less disk space than a 720 line .MOV.
BTW, been dealing with .JPG image files for many years and can tell you that putting them into a ZIP file doesn't do diddly to reduce the file size. The only effective means of reducing the file size is by increasing the "compression" when saving the file and that reduction in file size ALWAYS means less image quality.
I've stopped counting.
Posts: 5765 | Location: Michigan | Registered: November 07, 2008
Easiest way to actually reduce the file size? Reduce the image quality.
Easiest (and honestly, probably smartest) way to do what you need? Dropbox or another file hosting site and a link, Youtube and a link (there are ways to ensure only you and the recipient can see it), or another video hosting service.
Don't bother with compression; it won't do anything worthwhile.
"In order to understand recursion, you must first learn the principle of recursion."
As mentioned, a youtube non-public link if you just need people to be able to watch it. If they need to download/possess it, a file-sharing service is your best bet.
Some free email providers such as gmail and outlook.com/hotmail.com/msn.com offer free file sharing accessible when you log in to their email site. You can updload the file and share the private link.
I'm pretty sure dropbox offers a free account for 5-10GB of storage. Also, there used to be a site called transferbigfiles.com that worked pretty well when you didn't need keep the files available online for a prolonged period.
Simple, easy, just divide the file into smaller parts that your ISP will accept as a reasonable file size. It may require several emails. Open a command prompt (Terminal) on your Mac, and type "man split" for instructions on how to accomplish this.
Posts: 10874 | Location: South Congress AZ | Registered: May 27, 2006
Handbrake is a free program that will re-encode the video to a lower quality, creating a smaller filesize. It's will output as .mp4 (or .mkv, but don't use that).
Posts: 3325 | Location: IN | Registered: January 12, 2007
Originally posted by zoom6zoom: Or save yourself the trouble, put it on dropbox and email them the link.
Thanks guys. Doing a little research last night I found there was no real good way to compress it. I ended up putting it on google drive and sending a link.
