When people start making videos, one of the things that always surprises them is just how much space uncompressed videos can take up. We live in a time when 1080p video content is considered the bare minimum and recording in 4K have become commonplace, even for mobile phones, so video files are larger than ever before.
That being said, there are still plenty of ways to reduce video size. In this article, we’re going to show you how to use Flixier, an online video compressor. The tool is free and runs entirely in your browser. It uses advanced video processing algorithms to lower the size of your clips without sacrificing too much quality.
Of course, there are a number of video compression apps available on the internet, but we decided to focus on Flixier because:
- It’s browser-based, so you don’t need to download or install anything to your computer in order to use it. This also means that you can access Flixier and compress your videos with it regardless of your operating system. This video compressor will work on Mac, Windows, Linux and even ChromeOS!
- It’s a free video compressor. You don’t have to pay anything in order to use it, which makes it a very strong recommendation.
- It’s compatible with all the popular video formats. You can upload pretty much any video format to Flixier’s video compressor and the process will work just fine. The video will be converted to MP4 as part of the compression process, but your initial clip can be in any format, so you don’t need to worry about file extensions and converting videos manually.
- It’s easy to use but allows you to tweak advanced settings as well. We liked the fact that you can use Flixier’s video compressor software with one simple click, but we also appreciated the number of advanced options it provides. This way, people who are new to video production can get the job done quickly, while experienced users have all the freedom they need to compress their videos without losing quality.
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How to compress videos online for free
Now that you know all there is to know about the Flixier video compressor, we figured we’d provide some step-by-step instructions on how to use it:
You can find the Flixier video compressor by looking it up on Google. When you open the tool, you’ll be greeted by the following screen:
All you need to do is drag the video you wish to compress over from your computer, or click the Upload Your File button to choose it using File Explorer.
After your file is uploaded to the compressor, you’ll see a preview of it on the right side of the screen while the compression options are displayed on the left.
You’ll notice that you can toggle between modifying Bitrate and CRF compression. If you don’t know what any of these words are, we’d recommend that you don’t mess with this option and leave it the way it is.
You can use the slider to determine how much your video will be compressed. While Flixier has a pretty good algorithm that allows it to reduce the size of your videos without sacrificing too much quality, please keep in mind that there is no such thing as truly lossless compression. If you want the quality of your video not to change noticeably, then we’d recommend leaving the compression sliders in the middle.
Under the compression slider, you’ll find another video allowing you to change framerate (Frames Per Second) of your video. A lot of mobile phones these days shoot at high frame-rates by default, but if your video doesn’t feature a lot of fast-paced action, lowering the frame rate can be a perfect way to reduce the file size massively without lowering the visual quality of your video. Just don’t go any lower than 24 FPS or your video is going to look choppy.
Lastly, you can modify the resolution of your video by choosing a new one from the drop-down menu. Obviously, changing a video’s resolution from 4K to 1080p will have a massive impact on the filesize and if the video is meant to be watched on a small screen like a mobile phone, for example, it’s unlikely that your audience will notice the difference.
When you are done tweaking all the settings, click on Compress Video, and Flixier will process your video, compress it and then save it to your computer in minutes!
