Getting a large MOV file down to a specific size

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Level 1

9 points

Getting a large MOV file down to a specific size

I was hoping to get feedback/Direction on how I may Get my wedding films (mov files) compressed to a certain specific size.

I need to get files that typically are 20-30 gb in size and get them down to maybe a 4-8 gb thumb drive. I have brides requesting thumb drives now. It is really costly for 32 gb drives with my logo imposed on them.

I was hoping to get the files down to a smaller size and purchase more affordable thumb drives in the 4-8gb range.

I currently export out to 1080p export setting in FCPX then take into toast and burn to blue ray.

I don't specifically go into compressor much so I am not aware if you can set/determine a file size that you want a file to be.

Also if I take a 4 gb Wedding ceremony file and compress it down to say a 1 gb file will the picture quality suffer?

Any info or direction is appreciated. Thanks TIM

Final Cut Pro X, iOS 6.1.1, imac 27 in 8 gb Ram

Posted on Nov 2, 2015 10:11 AM

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Answer 1

Ricktoronto

Level 6

11,560 points

Nov 3, 2015 4:48 PM in response to Tim Pierce2

Any compression worsens the quality, the trick is how measurably. 4 GB to 1 GB (or 20-30 GB to 4 GB) is a lot of compression but depending on the screen it might not be that noticeable. People's home "HD" on cable is compressed a lot and looks fine - if you want to see how much better it can be watch digital HD broadcast to an HD antenna and compare to cable. Wow. A lot of difference. The broadcast signal is a lot better. Both 1080p but one might be 15 mb/sec and the other under 5 mb/sec.

Most people want iOS files which are pretty small and not HD but pretty good. Try the excellent, fairly fast and totally free Handbrake to convert from your source to their preset for iPad and/or for Apple TV. Use a piece cut from your huge 20GB files to test it out. You can cut and save a file with QuickTime 7 Pro.

Handbrake encodes well and you can set nearly every parameter including bitrate which is what is affecting your file size. Blu-ray can be 20+ mb/sec (that's megabits) while an iOS movie can look fine at 1.5 to 2.5 mb/sec.

Don't change the native size, e.g. 1080p but lower the bitrate to say 2,500 mb/sec and see how a few minutes looks via Handbrake.

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