Why is output file so much larger than input file?

[pieterpannus]

Dear all,

I film quite a lot of home videos with my Samsung smartphone at 1920 x 1080, 30 frames per second. A video of about 200 seconds gives a file of roughly 400mb. That's about 2mb per second of film. Now, when I paste two of these video files together in a simple project in Videostudio, the output file is huge (10mbps to 30 mbps...). If I want it to be smaller, of course I can select smaller resolution output options in the "share" menu, but the quality of the video is strongly affected.

=> it seems like I cannot use an output format which retains the same quality and doesn't make the (sum of the) file(s) way bigger...

- Is there a reason why files stitched together in VS become larger than the sum of the original files?
- Am I doing something wrong?
- What output format would you recommend for this kind of video? (*.mp4 file, 1920 x 1080, 30 fps)

Many thanks for your help!

Best,

Pieter

[lata]

Hi Pieter

Welcome to the forums

The size of the video file depends on the data rate in Kbps.
Recording to a high rate will produce a better quality video than a lower rate.
The type of compression of the video will also affect quality and size.

I would suspect that the phone video is using a lower rate than say a camcorder would use.
The default templates used in Video Studio would probably use a higher rate giving a larger file size

We can control the templates settings but by far the easiest is to use Same As First Clip which should use the properties of your original video.
I phones may use a variable frame rate, video studio would create a constant frame rate, would be the only difference.

Can you right click your video clip, on the timeline and choose properties, what are they?
When you add the video to a new project, did you receive a message to match the project settings, choose yes.

To render the video
Use Same as First Clip – is available top left og the Share options
Ken provided an image here
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=64196#p360430
simply change the default choice of project settings to first clip.

That is assuming your clip is the first video on the top timeline?

[pieterpannus]

Awesome, thanks a lot Lata! I tried the "Use same as first clip" and now the file sizes match and the quality is exactly the same as the original files.

Thanks again!

[iNate]

You probably rendered at a higher bitrate than the input files.

Smartphones tend to record at low bitrates. The NLE allows you to export at high bitrates. This will result in the exported file being larger than the file you got off of the smartphone.

[pieterpannus]

Yes, so it seems. Thanks again!