Which movie files takes less space?

silkyuk9

Im currently ripping VHS tapes to dvd. I am uploading some of the files onto youtube but when I have selected the clips I want a 20 minute clip can be over 1 gig. The file is mpeg2 I cannot save the file on my movie editor to anything else other than mpeg4.

If I have a mpeg 2 at around 1 gig I suppose I can convert it to another type of file that will still upload to youtube.

Which type of movie file can i convert to that would not take up too much data but still give good results on youtube? (AVI??)

bat999

silkyuk9 wrote: »

... the clips I want a 20 minute clip can be over 1 gig. The file is mpeg2...
Which type of movie file can i convert to that would not take up too much data but still give good results on youtube? (AVI??)

Hi
Probably would be OK with x264 for the video channel and aac for the audio channel in an mp4 file.
Programs that do this are often based on FFmpeg converter, such as WinFF or HandBrake and others.
I'd expect a 20 minute clip in this format to come in at less than a quarter of a gig (~250MB).

It would be good to see the characteristics of your mpeg files with MediaInfo (text view) program first.

If you want to use FFmpeg directly a command like this should be OK:-

ffmpeg -i filename.mpg -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -preset medium -c:a aac -b:a 128k -ar 44100 -ac 2 -strict -2 filename.mp4

esuhl

I don't do much with video files, so I may be wrong, but aren't MPEG files just containers for other codec types?

And, wouldn't the file size depend on the compression rate, rather than the file type...?

Nilrem

esuhl wrote: »

I don't do much with video files, so I may be wrong, but aren't MPEG files just containers for other codec types?

And, wouldn't the file size depend on the compression rate, rather than the file type...?

MPEG is a specific standard and format, the compression and codecs used are tightly specified and cannot vary from the standard (as they have to work on hardware that had it's specifications laid down anything up to 15 years or more ago).

MP4, MKV and Avi are "container formats" which can allow for different codecs and compressions systems to be used (for example mkv can use various codecs including 8 and the newer 10bit variants).