Axios There is also GUI for FFmpeg for encoding/decoding(?) in the repo called winff. It's very old, there is a setting for blackberry device. More recent one I found is videomass available as appimage.

      Use Youtube if you have an account, excellent video converter.
      Upload your video, keep it private etc, then download it from youtube studio.
      I did this several time, a 720p 350Mb video can finish 30Mb still 720p on your computer in mp4 format.

      "I'll be happy to put it on your thumb drive when you bring it to me"

        murbert "It's been a couple weeks. Do you still have my thumb drive?"

            brent This is why you put it on their thumb drive

              alfisya Ya I got winff on other machine never used it much just didnt do it for me.

                alfisya I remember videomass now after I downloaded it
                I could never get the appimage to work on my installs

                  alfisya it's interesting. In the output of my tries the Commander uses handbrake as an encoder. Finding the sweet spot between quality/MB right now in Commander's settings but they are all increasing the 50MB source file size...maybe the COmmander's Presets are not where I should be shrinking the m4v?
                  Will keep playing.

                      brent MP4 H.265,H.264 is prob your best bet
                      Lowering bitrate decreases file size but reduces quality of video.
                      I have a prog but its on a old computer you put some info in and it came up with the desired bitrate
                      But you got to think maybe there isnt much there to work with if its not raw video to start with.
                      Kinda like a flac audio file its raw audio and you can downgrade it to any the other formats with no problem.
                      If it is already mp4 or something whatever you do is going make it worse. (probably)
                      Follow?
                      Note always record audio/video in raw if you plan to edit heavy. I havent kept up with all the video advances
                      but thats the basics.

                          Axios It's a 5 minute live performance that I extracted a from DVD in Handbrake, in Solus.
                          Handbrake saved it high quality, in an .m4v format which I never heard of but now I know it's in the family of .mp4...
                          5 minutes=50MB when I look at it that way. That's about right, isn't it?

                          I heard h264/265 was my goal. no 265 in Commander but some 264's...all increased size..

                          strangely when I began this fruitless journey with Handbrake and ended with it---dig this: when I just saved in the Handbrake 264/265 they shrunk a little but quality on the eyeballs was lo-res harsh.

                          Axios If it is already mp4 or something whatever you do is going make it worse.
                          Follow?

                          Now I do!

                          Axios Kinda like a flac audio file its raw audio and you can downgrade it to any the other formats with no problem.

                          Yes. those kind of compression changes I don't have a music pro's ear to notice. correct. but seeing a different story here w/the video.

                          It's funny to me in 2023 all sorts of Great Software is compressed into an email-able 7zip, Zip, Targz, etc etc that you have to extract to decompress.....but also in 2023 you can't do that with a video file... 🙁.

                          edit; thanks for the great reply

                                  brent Can handbrake extract it as avi (avi=Raw)?
                                  5min at 720 is around 55mb
                                  5min at 480 is around 19mb
                                  5min at 360 is around 15mb
                                  approximates

                                      Axios I think I can do that in handbrake...I knew AVI was an older viable format...will try it a different night. what's special about AVI?

                                          brent It is raw its exactly what your extracting just in avi format.
                                          An Image lets say.
                                          Am hoping if you do thats its about double in size or more.
                                          Those previous sizes I gave would be the end result.

                                            It's not that difficult. First of all MP4, MKV, AVI, WebM, VOB[...] are container formats that stores the video und audio streams, subtitles etc.
                                            Different containers support different video codecs such as AVC/h.264, HEVC/h.265, VP8, VP9, AV1, MPEG-2, XviD.
                                            For example x264 is an software encoder for h.264 and x265 is an software endcoder for h.265.

                                            To check whats inside a container simply user the tool called Mediainfo. It will give you all important information about bitrate, framerate, resolution, codec etc.
                                            sudo eopkg install mediainfo

                                            Just open a video file with the GUI and switch to text view or use it with the terminal
                                            mediainfo [path videofile]

                                            The reason your output video got a bigger size then your source video is because it was already encoded with a pretty high quantizer. A high quantizer means high compression. So to shrink it even more you need an unusal high quantization. x264 and x265 control this with the constant(quality) rate factor(CRF) in Handbrake. A higher CRF will shrink the video more and of course decreases the quality. The Bitrate is the only thing that affects the size of an video.

                                            If your video is 50Mb and has a duration of 5 minutes it's bitrate will be ~ 1300kbps(minus bitrate for the audio stream) which is already pretty low. For example DVDs usually have an average video bitrate of ~ 6000kbps. (but use a very very outdated codec)
                                            With a modern codec like h.265 or VP9 or AV1 it could be possible to reduce the size about 50% (depents on the source and it's amount of grain, noise and motion) but shrinking it to 10Mb will definitely destroy the picture quality way too hard.

                                            To shrink an video to a preferred file size I would recommend to use one or better multipass encoding with an fixed average bitrate. (can be done in Handbrake too).
                                            Another very good video editing and transcoding tool is Avidemux.

                                              User_007 The reason your output video got a bigger size then your source video is because it was already encoded with a pretty high quantizer. A high quantizer means high compression. So to shrink it even more you need an unusal high quantization. x264 and x265 control this with the constant(quality) rate factor(CRF) in Handbrake. A higher CRF will shrink the video more and of course decreases the quality. The Bitrate is the only thing that affects the size of an video.

                                              If your video is 50Mb and has a duration of 5 minutes it's bitrate will be ~ 1300kbps(minus bitrate for the audio stream) which is already pretty low. For example DVDs usually have an average video bitrate of ~ 6000kbps. (but use a very very outdated codec)
                                              With a modern codec like h.265 or VP9 or AV1 it could be possible to reduce the size about 50% (depents on the source and it's amount of grain, noise and motion) but shrinking it to 10Mb will definitely destroy the picture quality way too hard.

                                              To shrink an video to a preferred file size I would recommend to use one or better multipass encoding with an fixed average bitrate. (can be done in Handbrake too).
                                              Another very good video editing and transcoding tool is Avidemux.

                                              d-a-a-a-a-a-a-amn. 👏
                                              " one or better multipass encoding with an fixed average bitrate. (can be done in Handbrake too)." let me figure this part out (I will) and take another run at it later. I love the days when I get an education or a flashlight shined better on what I think I know.

                                                User_007 98-2004 was my video period with final cut pro did not do anything with it
                                                after that (And everything now is alot different) We did cd and vcr and for our outdoor channel
                                                (I was always working with raw camera footage tho)
                                                Makes me realize how much I forgot tho heck 25yrs older to..

                                                That was my point earlier was not sure how much was left to shrink.
                                                I was doing that with a youtube clip I saved early this morning it was H.264 already was ending up bigger..lol
                                                I was trying different fixed bitrates but was ending up larger file size never tried the 2pass.

                                                If I had my windows machine going I would have taken a different clip and tried it.
                                                (I think youtube clip is bad example as they appear pretty streamlined already)
                                                But I cant handle doing it on linux so I gave up.

                                                Note: That was a good write up.

                                                    Axios 98-2004 was my video period

                                                    that was my vacuum-everything-in-the-entire-world-off-of-Limewire period....lots of infections, systems failures and syteem fubars, and viruses so nasty that the well-used 98/XP reinstall disks were always within arms length...man it really was the wild west. 🙂

                                                      Harvey I guess my question would be why attach it? You could just share it on google drive, via a unlisted youtube link etc

                                                      MODS: I was unable to set Harvey's response as solved/or set as Best Response^^. Please mark Solved, thank you.

                                                      Against my better judgment I just shared the DVD clip via MS OneDrive on a work account. I don't use google or MS in my personal life. It was a fragment of a German chamber orchestra doing an obscure rock piece in 2004, nothing piratey or weird. But there's a reason (internet hygiene) I keep my personal and professional life separate. I was very disappointed to have to cross that line.

                                                      ---nothing I did would get that 50% reduction rate anyway although I will say I did spend about 90 minutes total trying as much as I could. Thank you everyone who responded.

                                                          Off-topic threads do not have the option for selecting a best answer. Marking as solved manually.

                                                          EDIT:
                                                          If the "How do I" tag is set, select best answer is available.