By Jordi D. Rodríguez -
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Compress Video with VLC but Losing Quality? See the Quick Fixes
To skip complex fix steps & compress video in less quality loss, see: Workaround liked by 85% users
4K/1080p video offers impressive visual experience. But do you know how much space a 1-min uncompressed 1080p video takes? Averagely 120–130 MB. Large video file size is a headache for most people, because video sharing sites, social media sites, and apps have file size limitation for video uploading.
Hence, video compression is frequently needed and can be realized by using a free video compressor - VLC. You can use VLC to compress videos for reducing file size and saving space. Or compress videos for fast uploading on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. VLC video compressing tool is also needed when you want to share video with friends via Email, whatsapp and more.
How to compress large video with VLC?
Step 1: Go to VLC official page to download VLC. Note that VLC is a cross-platform program. Make sure you choose the right version for your system before clicking "Download VLC" button.
Step 2: Install VLC.
- Double click VLC setup file, then a window will pop to ask you to allow this program to make changes to your computer. You should click "Yes" to continue.
- You'll be asked whether to install optional VLC components or not. We suggest you to think twice before selecting those components. Otherwise, you'll have useless plugins. That would slow down the operating speed of your computer.
- When choosing the destination folder for VLC, 90% users have changed the default Disk C to other Disks to save space. Then click "Continue".
- A window will pop up to ask you to agree Network Access Policy. You have to click "Continue" to go on.
Step 3. After installing and launching VLC, you can start compressing video now:
- Click "Media" in the toolbar.
- Select "Convert / Save". You can also tap shortcut keys Ctrl + R to quickly open a new window.
- Click "Add", you can load one or more video files. Here, I'll choose a video shot by GoPro.
- After loading the video file you want to compress, click "Convert / Save" again.
- Choose your desired output profile type. With VLC, you can compress video to MP4, WebM, TS, and other formats.
Important notice: By clicking the wrench icon, you can access to the settings window, where you can customize parameters like codec, frame rate, bitrate, resolution, etc to change video file size. Here, we highly recommend you not to change the aspect ratio, i.e. not to scale the original video, because it will degrade the video quality and make this video useless.
- After customizing settings, click "Browse" to find a destination folder for the compressed video.
- Finally, click "Start" to shrink video size. Note: The whole compressing process may take a few minutes. During the compression, please do not close the window, or else the output video will be corrupted.
As showed above, compressing video with VLC is free. But it may be too complicated and slow for some users, especially for those who're not familiar with VLC and their computer configuration is old. Therefore, we'll also introduce an easier and faster way to reduce video file size - VideoProc for all types of users.
VLC compresses video for free but causes too much loss of video quality?
Instead of complicated fixes, more people tend to compress video in 3 easy steps in VideoProc.
VideoProc - Losslessly Compress Video and More
- Resize video in 6 ways, incl. transcode video to HEVC, adjust video parameters, etc.
- Edit before compressing: cut, trim, merge, crop, rotate, add effects, watermark, subtitle, etc.
- Advanced settings: stabilize, speed up or slow down vieo playback speed, remove fisheye
- Record Screen: record full/part of the screen on your desktop or iDevice.
Download VideoProc on Windows 
to compress videos
Download VideoProc on Mac to compress videos
Step 1. Open VideoProc and click "Video" on the main interface.
Step 2. Directly drag the videos that you want to compress to the software. You can also load one or more videos by clicking "Video" or "Video Folder" button.
Step 3. Choose your desired output format and click "Run" to start compressing video.
Final Words:
VideoProc not just allows you to easily compress videos without quality loss, it also nets you the power convert and backup DVDs to digital formats, record on-screen action in 3 modes and more. In conclusion, VideoProc is an easy & fast solution to meet your daily video processing needs!
