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ffmpegvideo-compression

While ffmpeg is recording, I want it to create a smaller and lower quality video


Currently I am using this...

ffmpeg -video_size 1920x1080 -framerate 1 -f x11grab -i :0.0+0,0 -f pulse -ac 2 -i default -t 00:00:10 Output.mkv

While ffmpeg is recording a video, I want it to significantly reduce both the size and quality compared to the ffmpeg command above.

In case you are curious, I am recording brief quality assurance videos to ensure a simple little web scraper I wrote in Python is scraping data properly (specifically, that it is clicking on a particular button, at a particular time, on a particular web page). My Python script triggers the command above to start recording my screen a few seconds before my Python script is supposed to click on that button.

Of course, to verify a button on a web page had been clicked on, low quality video resolution would normally suffice.


Solution

  • For libx264/libx265 the most important option to reduce both the size and quality is -crf. This option controls quality. A value of 51 provides the worst quality. If it's too terrible then use a lower number.

    ffmpeg -video_size 1920x1080 -framerate 1 -f x11grab -i :0.0+0,0 -f pulse -channels 2 -i default -t 00:00:10 -c:v libx264 -crf 51 -c:a libopus Output.mkv
    

    See FFmpeg Wiki: H.264.