If you want to convert videos to a format suitable for mobile devices or compress them so that they take up less space – it can be tricky. Mobile devices are incredibly diverse, and may run different versions of Android or iOS, as well as have varying chipsets and other specifications.
To help make it easier to convert and compress videos for mobile devices, there are a few tips that you should know:
• Hardware decoding is important
As you may be aware it is possible to play most any video format on mobile devices by downloading special media player apps. However that uses software decoding to play the video – not hardware.
If you are converting and compressing your video for a mobile device, you should try to select a format can be decoded using hardware decoding. Otherwise even if it can be played it is likely to significantly utilize the processor – leading to issues with heat and power consumption.
That is especially true of videos that have a high resolution and frame rate.
• Use MP4 (with H.264) as the ‘safe’ option
The ‘safe’ option when you want to convert and compress videos for mobile devices is MP4 with H.264. It is supported (with hardware decoding) by almost all mobile devices, and on all operating systems.
Overall the compression that the H.264 codec provides is still relatively good, and only newer codecs such as H.265 (HEVC), VP9, and AV1 are likely to be better – but have far more limited support.
• Reduce the bitrate gradually while watching for compression artifacts
One of the more popular ways to compress video files is to reduce the bitrate setting. But as much as this option is effective, it will affect the video quality and compression artifacts will start to appear.
Having too many compression artifacts on videos for mobile devices can make them almost unwatchable. That is why if you do go down this route you should take care to reduce the bitrate gradually in increments, and check its quality as you do.
If you notice that too many compression artifacts are starting to appear, you may not want to reduce the bitrate further than that.
Hopefully the tips listed above should help you to more effectively convert and compress videos for mobile devices.
If you want to get started and actually do that you could use Movavi Video Converter. It will make converting your videos easy, regardless of whether you want to convert VOB to MP4, MOV to MKV, FLV to AVI, or any other formats. On top of that you could use it to convert other types of media files, fix the quality of your videos, stabilize shaky footage, and more.
Seeing as you should understand the factors that you need to consider when you convert your videos or compress them a bit better – it should be easy to find the right options. In fact the best thing for you to do is try converting and compressing a video for your mobile device sooner rather than later.
As an Amazon Service LLC Program Associate, Lukastech Blog earns from qualifying purchases. See Our Affiliate disclaimer.
