It relates less to size than to the constancy of the optical quality. Moreover, the bit rate is only an approximation the codec can overrate or underrate it on the basis of the level of detail or noise in the material.įigure 5: Avidemux is ideal for compressing DVD video material with the H264 codec, which saves about 50 percent of the space normally used with comparable optics.Īlternatively, you can control the quality when compressing using so-called quantization, an abstract measure of compression strength. However, the audio track is missing from this calculation. The size of the compressed file is determined simply by the bit rate times the duration. The first method works with the bit rate per second. Two methods are available for adjusting the balance between quality and file size ( Figure 5).
Double-StitchedĪt first, you need to decide on an Encoding Mode You can save the settings in a profile that the software displays at the top of the dialog. All the others require some expertise in compression algorithms. Tab encompasses the few really important settings. Under the codec selections opens the settings with quite a daunting set of tabs at first glance. You can select this option instead of the usual Copy The matching dialog is hidden in Avidemux under the video track option MPEG-4 AVC Thus, DVDs still coded with the MPEG-2 process dating from the 1990s get reduced to half their original size with roughly the same picture quality after recompressing with H264. Video files tend to be so large that the benefit of compressing plays a role even with the current capacity of hard drives. Audio codecs provided include Vorbis, FAAC, MP2, AC3, MP3, and uncompressed Wave audio.
It also integrates the external libraries x264 and Xvid, which provide full functionality. Unfortunately, it doesn't use the pre-installed FFmpeg version, so neither license-determined editing nor updates can be applied. It generates PS files for DVDs and TS streaming files and MP4 files for mobile devices, and it reads analog Nuppelvideo format files from the MythTV video recorder software and numbered sequences of single-image frames.Īvidemux also supports all codecs from FFmpeg (MPEG-1/2, HuffYUV, FFV1, LavC MPEG4). The program reads and writes the popular formats AVI, MPEG, OGM, and MKV (Matroska), as well as Flash and Windows ASF videos.
Among Avidemux's specialties are its recompressing and conversion into other file formats.