Compressing Audio and Video Files

[BobH]

Being uncertain where this might best fit, I defaulted to Scuttlebutt. If it should be somewhere else, please move it, slap my hands and tell me what my fine is.

A friend of mine has a blog that is about 15 years old. There have been a lot of video files in the blog/vlog entries. Archiving them and protecting them requires a ton of storage because they are not compressed. I know that most files can be compressed and decompressed without loss, but I recall reading about lossy and lossless formats for audio and video files. While the discussions I read about the topic dealt with how they are originally captured as MP3 or MP4 formats, I don't know if those formats can be compressed for archival storage and retrieved when needed. Articles I've read online have me confused because I didn't find a definitive answer to the question.

Another question is how much reduction in file size one can expect by compressing MP4 files? Since AVI appears to be a very common choice for such compression, I'll assume that is the output format. I know that is a lot like asking, "How long is a piece of string?" Ranges or generalizations will help. I haven't found such info searching online.

Can anyone here help:

[ChrisGreaves]

I know that most files can be compressed and decompressed without loss, ...

What little I know I learned from the nice folks over at https://forum.audacityteam.org/search.php
I know that recording text through my microphone should be in WAV rather than MP3 format, and there is something else called FLAC or FLOC.

I am supposed to edit in WAV, because each iteration of opening and saving MP3 blurs the edges somewhat.
This topic might get you started.

I think that the Audacity forum is geared to audio rather than video, but as usual, the guys who know everythiing about, say, audio, invariably include some who know a lot about video.

Cheers
Chris

[HansV]

I have moved this topic to the Graphics and Video Software forum.

[JoeP]

Check out VLC for Windows for video.

Also, see How to Compress Video for more options.

[stuck]

A quick search on 'compress mp4' turns up this page:
    https://www.winzip.com/en/learn/tips/compress/mp4/
The opening sections are generic info and might help you.

If zipping is a solution to your archiving problem then the penultimate section gives instruction that are specific to WinZip BUT you DON'T need to spend money on WinZip. Instead, use 7-Zip, which is free (and open-source):
    https://www.7-zip.org/

Ken

[ChrisGreaves]

Instead, use 7-Zip, which is free (and open-source)

Good Grief! (grin)
Why not make use of Phil Katz's PKZip25.exe?
My copy is dated 04/14/1998 and hasn't run out of gas yet.

It gets an awful lot of use from the attached batch file.
Simplest use:

Untitled.png

The batch file defaults to zipping all the files in the folder to a file named with the date-time - so a unique filename each time.
As a bonus it zips a file list inside the zip-file.
Cheers
Chris