Intended usage
The attached export presets are ideal for editing video conference recordings and archiving online education classes. They are optimized for the following types of media:
- PowerPoint slide decks
- Screencast recordings
- Photo slideshows
- Webcam footage
Quality targets
The priority for these presets is the smallest possible file size while preserving these levels of quality:
- Text: perfect
- Speech: excellent
- Photo/Image: very good
- Video conference webcam: very good
- High quality video source: semi-decent
- Music: very good (mono only)
The goal is to produce a small file that can be presented to professional audiences (meaning clear speech and zero artefacts around text characters) and also support webcam-grade video. To this end, CRF 30 is no longer used. I can explain the new settings if anyone’s interested.
Installation and use
Update: These presets will be preinstalled with Shotcut starting with version 20.06. Download the following files only if using an older version of Shotcut.
Download these two files:
- Slide-Deck-H264.txt (385 Bytes)
- Slide-Deck-HEVC.txt (341 Bytes)
Copy them to this folder:
- Windows:
-
%LocalAppData%\Meltytech\Shotcut\presets\encode
- Linux/Mac:
-
~/.local/share/Meltytech/Shotcut/presets/encode
- Notes:
-
- If the
encodefolder doesn’t exist, then create it. All lowercase is required.
- If the
-
- This is the user’s custom presets area, not the Shotcut built-in presets area. The custom path is more stable since the installation root can vary widely by distribution.
-
- Once Shotcut 20.06 is released, remove the presets from the custom area so they don’t collide with the built-in versions.
Once copied into the proper folder, rename those two files to remove their .txt extensions. (The extensions were necessary to upload them to the forum.)
Start Shotcut and look for these new export presets:
- Stock > Slide Deck (H.264)
- Stock > Slide Deck (HEVC)
Export your video with either preset, but remember… Turn hardware encoding OFF for best results. Using a hardware encoder could cause exported files to be substantially larger than the software encoder.
Encoding time and file size comparison
-
For text-only screen recordings: The file sizes of H.264 and HEVC will generally be within 10% of each other, with HEVC being smaller. The H.264 preset may be favored for its speed. The average bitrate at 1080p is around 1.5 MB per minute, although results will vary depending on content.
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For recordings with embedded video: HEVC will generally be 30% smaller than H.264.
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For both cases: The HEVC preset generally takes 2.5x the time of an H.264 encoding. So one hour of H.264 encoding would be 2.5 hours of HEVC encoding. The end results of both are visually similar, so choose a preset based on encoding time or file size preference rather than visual quality.
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Compared to other presets: The “Slide Deck (H.264)” preset creates files that are around 10% the size of the YouTube preset. The space savings are substantial when applied to recordings of 2-hour class lectures and business meetings.
Enjoy!