With the advent of newer technologies, smartphones have become more powerful to handle more complex tasks with ease and that also includes the cameras and video recording capabilities.
Most modern smartphones today can record up to 8K videos. While shooting videos at this massive resolution adds to the quality, it also consumes much more space on the smartphone by resulting in bigger file size.
Let’s compare a 30 second video in different resolutions:
A regular full HD @30fps (H.264) video returns around 50MB file size. The same footage in 4K resolution will result in a much bigger file size of around 130MB and an 8K video file will be around 300MB.
It is also important to understand that the bigger file size makes it difficult to process and share with others.
Thankfully, there are ways to compress the video file size on Android smartphones. And, if you are looking to compress a video file size on your Android smartphones, here are two simple ways to do that right from your smartphone.
Method 1: Switch back to full HD or HD resolution
We have already established that a 4K or 8K video footage results in much bigger file size. Switching to the HD resolution or FHD resolution video resolution will reduce the file size by a huge margin.
You should know that reducing the resolution will also reduce the overall quality of the video. So, to keep a balance between the quality and file size, we recommend using FHD resolution.
Method 2: Use the High-efficiency or HEVC format
While FHD videos are more than enough for most needs, there are certain cases where you do not want to compromise on the resolution but want a smaller file size at the same time.
HEVC stands for ‘High Efficiency Video Coding’ most commonly known as H.265. This is a compressed file format that reduces the file size by a good margin without sacrificing on quality and resolution of the video.
Almost all premium Android smartphones offer this video encoding option under the camera settings. In fact modern mid-range phones also offer this feature.
So, switching to this mode will reduce the file size of the recorded video. However, there’s one crucial thing about this mode that you should know. The HEVC or H.265 video encoding mode isn’t as compatible as the regular H.264 video format. So, you’ll need an additional video player to play these files on your PC or other devices.
Method 3: Using in-built and third-party video apps
While both Method 1 and Method 2 talk about taking new videos with smaller file size, this method will help you compress the file size of an existing video file. Most smartphones come with a basic video editing tool baked right into the Gallery app. While they are low on features, they do come with the ability to save the video in lower resolution.
Similarly, there are third-party apps like KineMaster, Adobe Rush, Powerdirector, etc that allows users to compress a video file massively.
