FFmpeg on windows

FFmpeg is a CLI downscaling tool mostly used with linux. it is also compatible with Windows

Install FFmpeg on Windows

This documentation is based on information here https://ffmpeg.org/download.html

1. Open PowerShell

2. Launch this commande

    winget install ffmpeg
   

3. Test installation

    ffmpeg -version
   

   FFmpeg should be shown

Downscaling video files

I was using ffmpeg to reduce video file size to add video to a static website where video are saved in GitHub. the Max file size is 100MiB Tested with .mkv and .mp4 formats

Here is the command I used to downscale from 1440p to 1080p.

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf scale=1920:1080 -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -preset medium -c:a copy output_1080p.mp4

• -crf To lower the quality (and shrink file size), Increase the -crf value.
  • -crf 23 = default (medium quality)
  • -crf 28 = lower quality (smaller file)
  • -crf 30 = even lower quality (more compression)

• -preset controls how much time the encoder spends optimizing the video. It does not affect quality directly. It affects File size, Encoding speed and CPU usage.

  Preset	Encoding Speed	File Size	Quality
  ultrafast	Fastest	Biggest	Lower compression
  superfast
  veryfast
  faster
  fast
  medium (default)	Balanced	Good	Good
  slow	Slower	Smaller	Same quality, smaller file
  slower
  veryslow	Very slow	Smallest	Best compression