What is the best way to shrink m4v files even further?

O

oxband

Well-known member
I have a ton of files I need transcribed, and I'm sharing them with our transcriber via Dropbox. Right now, the files are m4v files. I want to shrink them further. I try using MPEGstreamclip but too often the file size gets even larger! The quality of the video isnt a big issue since it's people transcribing audio. I looked into making them AVI files, but even then, I'm not sure what file type to make them. Once you choose AVI, MPEG asks you to then pick a type of compression codec and there are a million options.

So...suggested settings vis Hanbrake or MPEGStreamclip for shrinking these small files even further?​
 
What about batch-processing these files to the MP4 format with a SD display size. ( when I send files to clients for review I always send SD sized MP4 files with the time-code burned in )
 
oxband said:
What type of compression do you use in the MP4 file?
Click to expand...

h.264/avc with a display size of 720x480 with a pixel ratio of 1.21 which is DVD wide-screen size and matches the 16:9 aspect ratio of the original 1080 HD footage. 4 Mbps bit-rate produces a clean image.
 
Just for transcribing? Picture doesn't really matter, other than your transcribers need to read timecode?

H.264 is the way to go, but you can get away with a much, much lower bitrate. I've just .exported an hour-long interview for transcription at frame size 640x360, bitrate 1Mbps, and it's super-clean, with a file size of 540 MB. Honestly, I could probably knock it down to about half that and it'd still be fine.

I'd say you could easily knock your bitrate down to 1 Mbps (if not lower) and get an acceptable picture for your needs.

Also, check the audio bitrate as well. Premiere defaults to 320kbps for me, but I usually knock that down to 192 (and honestly half that or lower is probably fine for transcription).
 
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