I have a lot of old Videos made by myself. The format ends to .AVI.
Right now, there are less players to look at the old Video. So I want to “convert” (Open and Save as) to a well known format: MP4.
I hope to reduce the space; the .AVI format needs a lot of!
What do I need for Settings to store as MP4, so that I receive a Reduction of the Space of about Factor 10 or better?
(i.E. AVI-File with 1’000’000 Bytes should reduze to less than 100’000 as MP4)
if its already compressed you dont want it compressed even more, also you should run mediainfo and give u infomation on video/audio etc if it has xvid then there is no point re-encoding and lose even more of the quality to mp4
.AVI is not a format, it’s a container.
“An AVI file may carry audio/visual data inside the chunks in virtually any compression scheme, including Full Frame (Uncompressed), Intel Real Time (Indeo), Cinepak, Motion JPEG, Editable MPEG, VDOWave, ClearVideo / RealVideo, QPEG, and MPEG-4 Video.”
As nwgat suggests, use mediainfo to identify which encoder has been used for your source.
► MediaInfo - Download
I often call[quote=“Steve_Ledger, post:3, topic:922”]
.AVI is not a format, it’s a container.
[/quote]
FYI, I often call containers “formats” or “container format” because these things are file formats with file format definitions. I think you are splitting hairs with terminology here. The one thing it is clearly not is a codec. Like many things in communication, context is important.
Oh, and BTW, in Shotcut > Export, there is field labeled “Format” that offers “avi” as a choice.
Yeh, the common misunderstanding of ‘format’ is that it’s the codec. I was speaking in lay terms for the OP.
Thank’s a lot for the Informations!
I loaded the suggested Medio-Info. A dump of the Information of one AVI-File is displayed below. - The Question remains: what settings do I need to have a “good” quality for MP4-Files to reduce the FileSize with a Factor of about 10?
General
Complete name : D:\MZ_Filme\Film_2005-10_Burgund-CaptainsLady.avi
Format : AVI
Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave
Commercial name : DVCPRO
Format profile : OpenDML
File size : 1.50 GiB
Duration : 7 min 6 s
Overall bit rate mode : Constant
Overall bit rate : 30.3 Mb/s
IsTruncated : Yes
Video
ID : 0
Format : DV
Commercial name : DVCPRO
Codec ID : dvsd
Codec ID/Hint : Sony
Duration : 7 min 6 s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 24.4 Mb/s
Encoded bit rate : 28.8 Mb/s
Width : 720 pixels
Height : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 4:3
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 FPS
Standard : PAL
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Bottom Field First
Compression mode : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 2.357
Time code of first frame : 00:00:00:00
Time code source : Subcode time code
Stream size : 1.43 GiB (95%)
Audio
ID : 1
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Little
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Codec ID : 1
Duration : 7 min 5 s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 78.0 MiB (5%)
Alignment : Aligned on interleaves
Interleave, duration : 1000 ms (25.00 video frames)
okey looks like its DV, soo i would think H.264 High Profile with Quality-Based VBR at 70-80% would do well
for you, You should always keep your orginal files, use backblaze b2 to keep a cheap backup in the cloud 
you can also try with ~60% if the filesize is to big
Thanks for the Help!
Which Parameter do you propose for:
VIDEO
… and perhaps some more Settings?
Thank you for your Support!
Oops, … I took some wrong Parameter for the Resolution
VIDEO
see if the project resolution is the same as source file in settings > video mode (set it to automatic)
then double click on H.264 High Profile, it should switch to the project resolution and fps
resolution should be same as source
frame/sec should be same as source
deinterlacer use YADIF - Temporal - Spatial (best)
interporlation = hyper (lanczos) (best)
let the rest be default
Thank you!
I tried these settings; but the reduction of the File Size with VBR 70% ist only divide 3; with VBR 60% it is about
The following parameters should be as set initial?
CODEC
Another question: If there is a move in the Film (Camera move), the image has like a “flicker” an is not so nice. Is there a Parameter I should change to try if the view is better?
Your source file’s refresh rate is 50 Hz because it is interlaced. When you output the H.264 MP4, you chose progressive (not interlaced), which gave you 25 Hz because it is 25 fps. This will impair motion. Shotcut is not able to deinterlace in a manner that up-samples the frame rate. You can choose set Shotcut Export > Video > Scan mode to Interlaced to preserve the interlace - even for H.264 MP4.
I’m going to stick my neck out and suggest that you try HEVC to directly answer the question or thought of achieving 10 to 1 sizes. Find the HEVC preset, which is the codec for encoding your file, and try mp4 or mkv as the container. Searching online for x265 or HEVC will give you a substantial amount of info and help.