Compress Videos to Reduce File Size
Shrink video files with quality presets or manual control over bitrate and frame rate. Pick how small you want it.
Drop your videos here
or click to browse files
What You Can Control
Choose exactly how much to shrink your video and how much quality to keep.
Quality Presets
Start with Fast, Normal, Maximum, or Ultra. Pick a preset and go, or fine-tune from there.
Quality Slider
Dial quality from 1 to 100 for precise control over how much detail you keep.
Bitrate
Set the target bitrate from 0.5 to 8 Mbps to hit a specific file size or streaming budget.
Frame Rate
Keep the source frame rate or cap it at 24, 30, or 60 FPS to shrink files further.
The Compression Sweet Spot
We compressed one video at every quality level and measured both the file size and the picture quality with VMAF[1], Netflix's perceptual metric where 100 is identical to the source and above 95 is visually excellent.
| Preset | Quality Level | File Size | Quality (VMAF) | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maximum | 20 | 66% of original | 98 VMAF | Excellent |
| Custom | 24 | 46% of original | 96 VMAF | Excellent |
| Normal | 26 | 36% of original | 95 VMAF | Excellent |
| Custom | 28 | 26% of original | 93 VMAF | Very good |
| Custom | 30 | 20% of original | 91 VMAF | Very good |
| Fast | 32 | 17% of original | 89 VMAF | Good |
The sweet spot is the Normal preset: it cuts the file to about a third of its size while keeping quality at 95 VMAF, still visually excellent. Push harder than that and the file barely shrinks more, but quality starts to drop noticeably.
Measured from a 720p source with H.264. Your results vary with resolution, motion, and source quality. Higher-motion footage needs a lower CRF to look the same.
We compressed one video to 13 formats and measured the results
Real compressed sizes and VMAF quality scores for every format. See which shrink best at good quality, and which are bigger and worse.
Supported Video Formats
Compress 20+ different video formats - from modern web formats to legacy professional encodings
Common Encodings
MPEG-4 container using H.264, H.265, or AV1.
Best for web, mobile, social, and everyday sharing.
The safest pick when you need it to play anywhere.
Microsoft container dating back to 1992.
Best for legacy Windows software and old hardware.
Plays almost anywhere, but files run large.
Open Matroska container with flexible tracks.
Best for archiving and multi-language movies.
Holds unlimited audio and subtitle tracks.
Apple QuickTime container.
Best for editing in Final Cut and iMovie on Mac.
Native on Apple; may need extra codecs on Windows.
Windows Media container.
Best for playback on Windows systems.
Compact, but limited compatibility elsewhere.
Adobe Flash Video container.
Best for opening legacy web-video archives.
Obsolete since Flash was retired in 2020.
Web Encodings
Open container using VP8, VP9, or AV1.
Best for HTML5 web video and streaming.
Royalty-free and plays in all modern browsers.
Ogg container using the Theora codec.
Best for open-source projects and Linux.
Patent-free, but less efficient than newer codecs.
Apple variant of MP4.
Best for iTunes, Apple TV, and iOS.
Like MP4, with optional Apple DRM.
Professional Encodings
MPEG-1/2 program stream.
Best for DVD, VCD, and broadcast video.
A foundation of early digital video.
MPEG-1/2/4 standard container.
Best for DVD, broadcast, and streaming.
The industry base for TV and cinema.
DVD-Video container built on MPEG-2.
Best for DVD authoring and backups.
Stores menus, subtitles, and multiple audio tracks.
AVCHD camcorder format using H.264.
Best for consumer HD camcorder footage.
High-bitrate 1080p from Sony and Panasonic.
Blu-ray transport stream.
Best for Blu-ray and AVCHD footage.
H.264 up to 40 Mbps, from 1080p to 4K.
Mobile Encodings
3GPP mobile container.
Best for old phones and MMS messages.
Heavily compressed for slow networks.
Legacy Encodings
RealMedia streaming format.
Best for opening 1990s web-video archives.
Pioneered dial-up streaming, now obsolete.
Variable-bitrate RealMedia.
Best for early-2000s downloads and anime.
Better quality per size than plain RM.
Windows Media container.
Best for Windows Media streaming.
The base format behind WMV and WMA.
Adobe Shockwave Flash.
Best for old Flash animations and games.
Discontinued after Flash reached end of life.
References
- VMAF: Perceptual video quality assessment - Netflix / GitHub
- H.264 encoding guide (CRF explained) - FFmpeg Wiki
- Web video codec guide - MDN Web Docs, Mozilla
- VP9 encoding settings - Google Developers
- VMAF: The Journey Continues - Netflix Technology Blog
- H.265/HEVC encoding guide - FFmpeg Wiki
- VP9 encoding guide - FFmpeg Wiki
- AV1 encoding guide - FFmpeg Wiki
- Recommendation ITU-T H.264: Advanced video coding - ITU
- Recommendation ITU-T H.265: High efficiency video coding - ITU
- AV1 Codec - Alliance for Open Media