How do I reduce the size of a video file withhout losing quality.
 

I've got a large MP4 file... 17gig for 10mins of footage

I want to keep its definition and quality but I want to reduce its size to hopefully less than 5gig.

Anyone got any recommendations for a program that I can use?

Also, I'm using the latest version of Sony Vegas. So if there's a trick that I might be missing I'll be grateful to know about it.

It's impossible. Reducing the size means dropping or compressing some data.

What you would need to do is experiment and decide which elements count as quality for you. It also depends on the quality of the source material. The source was of low quality, then you can shed lots of extra data.

For example:
Is it a 4K Video? Try reducing to True HD and even regular HD then compare them.

Or, is it 60FPS? Try reducing it to 30 FPS. If it's supposed to be a piece of cinematic art, 24 FPS will look nicer anyway, AND save you a shit-ton of data.

You could even mess around and down-sample the audio bitrate but I don't know if you would save much there.

Regardless, if the source isn't meant to be true 4K/HDR/60FPS Super-Duper-Wow quality, you're wasting bandwidth, time and resources. Get compressing!

Codex is important...

But

Go to google
Type "sony vegas X render settings" where x is the res you want.
Like "sony vegas 1080p render settings"

I render for 1080p for youtube, but 4k for storage.

But like Mark said, you cant remove imageinfo and keep quality the same. But sometimes the "good enough" can be a lot smaller than the source material.

Something like this is what you are looking for, based on the way you asked the question

vegas is a good app

https://handbrake.fr/

This is a good little program.

That solved the problem.

Thanks... It's greatly appreciate

Yeah it's a great little program for scaling things down :thumbsup

Good share man! :thumbsup

Fun fact, Handbrake is using ffmpeg in the backend which is used in production on many tube sites for video encoding.

Woahh!! I used to use this 10+ years ago, it does the job!! :2 cents: :thumbsup