Compress video without losing quality
Videos are the most popular type of content on the Internet today. We find more and more videos on the different websites we visit, but in addition, it is the type of content that is most shared through social networks and instant messaging applications. However, one of the problems that videos have is the large size they can have. Therefore, we will show you some of the best programs to compress video without losing quality.
There are different ways to compress and reduce the size of a video, but in most cases we run the risk of losing quality and not looking the way we want it to later. To avoid this, it is important to choose well the tool that we will use to compress the video, because ideally it is to use a tool that allows us to reduce its size without losing its quality. In this sense, at any time we can find online tools and other downloadable applications that can help us compress a video from the browser or desktop.
While it’s interesting to know which are the best software for compressing videos, it’s also interesting to know which one is the most suitable program for your needs or resources. Therefore, we give you some tips so that you can make the best decision. Price is one of the factors that we pay the most attention to when choosing a program, in this case, it cannot be less. It is noteworthy that you know that there is a wide variety of free ones that offer you good quality.
Knowing compatibility with Windows, Linux, Mac, Chrome Os or any other operating system is essential. You should also check if it is compatible with mobile devices. It is very important to know the compression quality of the program to get the best possible result. Ease of use is a very important factor to consider. It is interesting to choose those that have additional functions or are compatible with various formats, but that you are particularly interested in. This possibility is interesting if you have a device that only plays some formats.
Handbrake
Handbrake is a free and open source software with both Windows and Mac versions that allows us to reduce the weight of a video without sacrificing quality. is a tool. Handbrake is compatible with versions of Windows from Windows 7 to Windows 11 and on computers running Ubuntu or Flatpak, or versions of macOS. All of them are available from the web and we can download them for free in a few seconds.
To compress a video with Handbrake without sacrificing quality, the first thing we will do is go to the audio tab and check if there is more than one audio track in our video. In this case, we can easily remove the traces and reduce the weight of the video. When it comes to format, we will look at it from several angles. The first might be to choose the video codec, the most efficient for our purposes H.264 might be a great choice.
Now we find the options to specify the video resolution by clicking the Output Setting section in the Format menu. A recommended option is to check the current resolution of the video and the quality at which we can play it on most of our devices. In this case, we will be able to reduce them to the maximum quality allowed by the device to which we are going to reproduce them, and therefore reduce their size, but we will not notice any loss of quality.
Handbrake also allows us to compress a video a little more by adjusting other details like bitrate or frame rate, but if we don’t really know what we’re doing, it’s better not to touch anything so as not to degrade our quality.
Freemake
Freemake is one of the most popular programs for converting videos. It is compatible with Windows versions from Windows Vista to Windows 11, and the latest version was released in December 2020, but you can review the version history to see if a newer version is available. In this case, you cannot use it from Mac or Linux, so disable your option if you do not have a Microsoft operating system.
A tool that adds watermarks to our videos, although the free version is free. However, if it is for personal use, we can use this tool to compress a video with ease.
To do this, the first thing we have to do is download the program and install it on our PC, and then once we have the FreeMake interface, the next thing we will do is click on the add video button to select the video we want. It is also possible to use the drag and drop functionality to add video to the compression.
Next, we specify the format we want to save the video in, the quality of our compressed video, bitrate, frame rate, audio and video codecs, etc. we choose. Also, Freemake is software that can compress a file more or less to the size we need. After configuring all this to our liking, we select the destination folder and all that remains is to click on the Convert button to compress the video without sacrificing quality.
Shotcut
Shotcut is another video editor with a plethora of tools to convert, compress or perform other types of tasks on our videos. It is available for both Windows and macOS and Linux, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions.
When it comes to reducing the size of a video without sacrificing quality, Shotcut works very similarly to Freemake. It is free software, but with a limited version, it allows us to compress a video without loss and convert it to a less heavy format. In this way, we will ensure that it takes up less space with the same image quality.
Its interface is very simple and intuitive when it comes to being handled by anyone, regardless of whether they have any experience with this type of program. Of course, it is an application with many options and utilities for editing and converting videos.
It is compatible with Windows and has a regular and portable version. It also has a version for macOS 10.12 or higher and a version for GNU/Linux on distributions like Debian, Fedora, Manjaro…
Filmora9
Filmora9 is probably one of the best programs for editing videos at any level. It is useful not only to compress video, but also to cut, export, create, merge any movie. The need to reduce the size of a video is very common as the size of some videos can take up a large portion of the available storage space on our computer or device. However, there are some tools like Filmora9 that allow us to compress a video in a simple way.
The Wondershare tool is available for Windows and Mac, it is possible to download a free version from the official website, and in addition to all the available functions for editing videos or applying numerous effects to them, it allows us to reduce the size of a video without loss of quality.
Specifically, what we can do with Filmora9 is reduce the video resolution, transfer rate, frames per second or convert it to MP4, avi, FLV, Mov, etc. Compressing a video to make it smaller by converting it to other formats such as We can also reduce the size of the video by cutting out the parts that we don’t like or add nothing with the editing tools the software offers. The free version of Filmora9 adds watermarks to our videos, but if they are for personal use it may not be a barrier.
Movavi Video Converter
Movavi Video Converter is a program available for Windows and Mac and is designed for those who need to save a video, movie or part of their favorite series on their hard drive and compress it to take up as little space as possible. Of course, if there is one thing that is important when it comes to reducing the size of the videos, it is that there is no loss of quality.
In this sense, Movavi Video Converter allows us to compress any type of digital video or DVD file, although we can use it to convert videos to different formats such as MP4, MOV, WMV, AVI, MKV, 3GP, MPEG.
After the application is installed on our PC, we add the video from the option that appears in the upper left part of the interface, select the video format, determine the compression ratio, select the folder where we want the result file to come. it will be saved and we will be ready for anything to click the Convert button. Once the process is finished, we will have the compressed video in the selected folder ready for playback.
Free HD Video Converter
Free HD Video Converter is another completely free tool that provides a great solution for free HD video conversion, improving video quality and striking a perfect balance between quality and file size.
It completely avoids the disproportionate aspect ratio and dull color of the output images and can enable the output video to be displayed in full screen on your portable devices. It is very simple to use, allowing you to reduce the size of the original video by dragging the customizable compression level bar. It supports HD video conversion up to 720P for export and HD video up to 8k for import.
VLC
It wouldn’t be on the list without the almighty VLC. And the famous multimedia player also allows the option to compress a video without sacrificing quality. A tool that many users will have already installed on their computers, as we can get it absolutely for free and use it to compress videos losslessly.
To do this, add the media in question and switch from the Convert/Save option to the conversion configuration, so the result is the same video in smaller size and without affecting its quality.
VideoSmaller
VideoSmaller is one of those websites that offers us a simple way to reduce the size of a video without sacrificing quality. To do this, all we have to do is go to the VideoSmaller site, upload the video in question, choose whether we want to use the low compression level to maintain the highest quality, choose whether we want to choose video scaling or remove it. sound is something that will allow us to reduce its size as well. It is important to know that VideoSmaller is a video compression service that offers some limitations as it is free, because our video cannot occupy more than 500 MB.
The interface is pretty poor and it’s not the best website you can find, but it does the job: we can compress videos in a few seconds without loading anything and with fast results.