The fastest way to Re-Encode mp4 to smaller size files?

Hello,

please, what is the fastest and easiest way to re-encode original ATEM Mini Pro ISO files (from all the individual HDMI inputs) into files with smaller size? Do you recommend any specific Blackmagic hardware or a graphic card for this?

Explanation: I am using ATEM Mini Pro ISO to record two to three hours long videos. I record all inputs and I end up with number of huge files. These are very difficult to store, move and process between offices in different locations. I would need to make the files smaller (e.g. better compression, lower bitrate), keep there information like Timecode and it would be great if during this process I could maybe crop the videos. Ideally, it should be possible to queue the jobs.

Please any ideas how to do that?

Thank you,
- Robert

DaVinci Resolve Studio and a GPU capable of hardware encoding, if you are using a PC.

DaVinci Resolve Studio and a GPU capable of hardware encoding, if you are using a PC.

Thank you Uli.

Please, any tips for a specific non PC hardware solution? Also, do you know if there is a GPU card speed comparison for mp4 encoding? I have seen many posts with all the kind of GPUs, but I could not find anything which would compare how much faster one GPU will encode mp4 comparing to a different one. Thank you.

Get a Mac mini M1 then.
Hardware encoding is rather limited by the speed of data throughput if it’s the only task the machine has. Keeping the source and destination on different media helps, in particular when your larger source files are on the very fast internal SSD of the mini.

But remember, fast ist not always good. The best results with small file sizes will come out of Handbrake.

If you re-encoding MP4 (or more precisely files which are 1-100Mbit) to smaller size then disk speed is about meaningless (specially when you think about SSDs) as this requires overall tiny portion of you disk capabilities.

I use Handbrake. It's free and does a very good job.
https://handbrake.fr/

If you re-encoding MP4 (or more precisely files which are 1-100Mbit) to smaller size then disk speed is about meaningless (specially when you think about SSDs) as this requires overall tiny portion of you disk capabilities.

Of course, I was thinking about the larger intermediate source files. Fast encoding will need fast feeding.
And, yes, Handbrake can be quite fast with a lot of strong CPU cores.

Thank you very much. Handbrake looks interesting. I am going to test it.

I suggest ffmpeg

ffmpeg.org

Fast, reliable, can compress in very very small H.264 files with a command like this:

ffmpeg -hide_banner -i INPUT.mov -crf 26 -preset veryfast OUTPUT.mp4

crf: around 18-20: visually lossless
around 28-30 smaller, but visually loss

We use it very often andit does a good job. Handbrake is based upon it.

Yes, Handbrake is actually just a front end if you are afraid of command lines