(Apr 08, 2019, 08:13 am)freeworld305 Wrote: I've recently download 138gb worth of a tv series and wanted to see if I could make that number at bit smaller.
Gigabytes itself don't mean much. If you download 10 episodes worth 130 GB, that's 13 GB each; if you got 1000 episodes, only 0.13 GB each.
Also the file size won't tell much about the video resolution (in pixels, width x height), frame rate (in FPS), and bit rate (in KBps or Kbps, note the difference).
Once you find out the desired frame aspect, dimensions, data throughput, then select file format and encoding parameters.
Lemme tell that there's a lot of discussion around here (and all the Internet) about what is better. Suffice to say, some lousy encoders can't do decent videos with HEVC no matter how big their files are, while I've seen some unbelievable good movies in 1/10 the size, with older codecs and worse res/fps.
The most important lesson I learned by experience: Don't be cheapo and don't hurry: Use double-pass encoding and trial-and-error dozens of times until you find out the best parameters and format options for your ambitions. And remember the people watching won't have the same hardware (monitor) as you: If you encode for large 60" Ultra-Wide displays, it's a big file no matter what you try... If you encode for a 10" tablet, it's a whole different thing.
Last, but not least: Re-encoding an encoded video will always have poorer results than encoding from the source material. Copy of a copy = lucky at best.
Note:
I'm not talking about RobertX, just any codec, even HEVC x265, won't have good results without know-how. Also some people consider the older x264 better.
