Shrink my video!

🌳 Upload your video then get a smaller one, easy!

Privacy note: The video stays on your computer, nothing is sent anywhere, it even works offline!

✔ Apply settings from The Shift Project (720p, CRF 22, 160 kbits/s) (?)

PRO TIP Here are the ffmpeg settings which will be applied to your video:


Why this tool?

TL;DR; to help reduce the environmental footprint of the digital world

This tool aims to humbly participate in stopping the race for ever more quality and bandwidth (8K resolution, 5G network, etc.) by offering a simple way to radically reduce the size of a video.

The digital world’s contribution to the footprint of humanity is currently around 4% (see this report from GreenIT.fr and this another report from The Shift Project). This is more than the aviation, and it is predicted to grow in the future.

Online video does NOT represent the main impact of the digital world, manufacturing is a much bigger deal. But reducing the size of a video can help keep our old devices that have limited bandwidth and limited computing power, instead of buying new ones.


What does it do?

Apply settings from The Shift Project (720p, CRF 22, 160 kbits/s)

The Shift Project has published a guide for reducing the size of a video while maintaining a good quality

You can download it here.

Basically, it reduces the video resolution to 720p and the audio bitrate to 160 kbits/s. The Constant Rate Factor (CRF) is set to 22.

Lower video resolution (480p)

It reduces the video resolution to 480p. Don't watch it on your 4K TV, otherwise it is OK.

Lower video quality (CRF 28)

It reduces the Constant Rate Factor (CRF) to 28. You won't see tiny details but the essential is there.

Lower audio bitrate (56 kbits/s)

It reduces the audio bitrate to 56 kbits/s. If the audio is mainly speeches, it should remain audible.

One image every 5 seconds (!)

For some videos, like conferences, there is not much action and you can easily understand what happens even with one image every 5 seconds

Black and white

Aesthetic and lightweight


How it works

Let's get into the technical details

This tool uses FFMPEG.WASM to edit the video directly in the browser!

You can download FFMPEG to try these settings directly on your computer

Apply settings from The Shift Project (720p, CRF 22, 160 kbits/s)

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -s hd720 -c:v libx264 -crf 22 -vf "scale=iw*sar:ih,setsar=1" -c:a aac -b:a 160k output.mp4

Lower video resolution (480p)

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -s hd480 -c:v libx264 -crf 22 -vf "scale=iw*sar:ih,setsar=1" output.mp4

Lower video quality (CRF 28)

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -crf 28 -vf "scale=iw*sar:ih,setsar=1" output.mp4

Lower audio bitrate (56 kbits/s)

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:a aac -b:a 56k output.mp4

One image every 5 seconds

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "fps=fps=1/5" output.mp4

Black and white

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "hue=s=0" output.mp4

This whole approach is inspired by image dithering (see here for an example), which removes a lot of data in the image while preserving its essential meaning