Free Open Source Video Transcoder

There is a video transcoder that I’d like to recommend and it’s called “HandBrake”. It is free and work on Mac, Windows and Linux.

Video Transcoder

On occasions you may have a video in a format that is not usable for Youtube, or you may want a video optimized for a certain mobile device, and you will have to transcode it to another format with a Video Transcoder.

This is how the software looks like, it has presets to help you and if you know what you are doing, you can use any parameter to set the final video the way you want.

Video transcoder

How to optimize your video files with the Handbrake video transcoder

I am going to show you how to optimize your video file for streaming videos in other video hosting services than Youtube.

Google “Handbrake” to download it (available for Windows, Macintosh and Linux. It is free!)


1)
When you start the software select your video source file in any format.

This is the setting I personally use for this Video Transcoder and I found it to work well in Amazon S3.

2) Select the option iPhone & iPod touch after you have clicked on the “Toggle Presets” icon as shown on the image below:

Handbrake video transcoder

I select this option in the video transcoder because I want my videos to be played on all mobile devices and desktops.

3) You have now to set all your video options as shown on the image below:

Handbrake video transcoder

a. Be sure that the format you select in the video transcoder is “MP4 file” and that the URL seen in the Destination window ends by .mp4. This is very important if you want your videos to show on all devices including iPads and iPhones.

b. Check the Web optimized option and deselect the others.

c. Select Frame Rate equal to “30? and Peak Framerate (VFR)

d. Select video quality as follow:

–> Average Bit rate (kbps) equal to “100?

–> Check options: 2-pass encoding and Turbo first pass

The setting above works very well for videos that display in the size “640″ wide. If the video is larger you may increase the Average bit rate, if it is smaller you may decrease it in the video transcoder.

4) The final step is to set the Audio like in the image below:

Handbrake video transcoder

The Audio is set to a Bit rate of “128”. The original value is probably higher and it is not necessary.

When you use the “Handbrake” Video Transcoder with the setting described above, you will be able to divide your files size by 2 for small files and by 4 for very large files.

Smaller files are also very important when you are on an Internet connection with low upload speed.
Your online video streaming will work like a charm now and you will be ready to distribute your video not only in Youtube, but also other video networks.

I hope this is useful for you.

You can find the software here: https://handbrake.fr/

I hope this helps.

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