Handbrake settings for video compression...

[gwbaker]

I have been experimenting with Handbrake to compress the massively large 4K videos recorded by my mavic. I have gotten great video but still hover around 400 meg for a 10 minute video. I have gotten smaller file sizes, but the video looks like crap.

Would anyone care to share their handbrake settings that achieve a good balance of high compression and decent resulting video quality.

 

[Qoncussion]

The one single setting that affects the file size is the Mbps (megabits per second) that you set for the exported video. Continue to lower this value until you get the results you want. 4K @ 60 Mbps is already pretty low quality. Reducing that in Handbrake may yield some pretty unwatchable footage. You might want to shoot at 2.7k or 1080p for smaller files.

Here's a cheesy calculator that can tell you the file size based on Mbps and total video length:

Data size calculator | toolstudio

 

[gwbaker]

Okay, that shed a lot of light on it for me. I have very little experience in video editing so I was a bit confused. I figured recording at the highest level and then compressing would be best. I guess I would be better off recording at lower rates and going from there.

 

[Qoncussion]

Yeah, Mavic's 4K has a pretty low bit-rate (Mbps), which means that there isn't as much data in the 4K video as in other consumer and professional 4K cameras. So if storage is the issue, down-sampling Mavic's 4K *might* leave you unhappy with the results. Do a few tests with various resolutions and file sizes, and decide for yourself what works best.