Handbrake – University Digital Teaching Portal

Instructional Guide: Handbrake Video Compressor

Overview

HandBrake takes videos you already have and makes new ones that work on your mobile phone, tablet, TV media player, game console, computer, or web browser—nearly anything that supports modern video formats. HandBrake works with most common video files and formats, including ones created by consumer and professional video cameras, mobile devices such as phones and tablets, game and computer screen recordings, and DVD and Blu-ray discs.

HandBrake can also make videos that are smaller – taking up less storage space on your device – than the originals.

When To Use

You can use Handbrake when:

Your video (.mp4) file size is LARGE (greater than 100MB) – the mp4 file needs to be compressed. This is because Moodle @UKZN only takes a maximum of 100MB.

You need to crop and resize video
You need to restore old and low-quality video
You need to convert nearly any video to MP4, MKV or WebM.

Instructional Guide

HandBrake is a free video compression tool. The instructional guide below is a step-by-step guide to using Handbrake to make H.264 video before uploading to Moodle.

Note: This page specifically describes how you can use HandBrake to compress your video (mp4) files.

Compress Video Using HandBrake

HandBrake is a free video compression tool. This is a step by step guide to using Handbrake to make H.264 video before uploading to Moodle.

Step 1:

Download and Install HandBrake from http://handbrake.fr/

Step 2:

After installation, open the HandBrake application

Step 3:

At the left side, under Source Selection click File.

Step 4:

Select the file you want to compress and click Open.

Step 5:

Choose where you want the compressed video to be saved by clicking Browse.

Step 6:

Enter a name for the video, give it a name that would let you easily identify between the compressed and original video, i.e. “Vidello – Compressed- H264.mp4” and click Save.

Step 7:

Under Output Settings, choose MP4 for Container.

Step 8:

Click the Video tab and for Video Codec choose H.264 (x264).

Step 9:

Select a Preset from the Preset Drawer. We recommend you choose Fast1080p 30 for high quality.

Step 10:

Choose the framerate, depending on your source video i.e. NTSC (29.97fps) then make it 30fps by choosing 30. Also tick the Constant Framerate to ensure better compatibility.

Step 11:

Enter an Average Bitrate (kbps) for the video between 5,000-10,000 (higher bitrates have higher quality video but will take longer to upload and download).

Step 12:

Click the Picture where we can change the video frame size or resolution.

Step 13:

Change Anamorphic to None, and Modulus to 16. And tick Keep Aspect Ratio, use the arrow down on Width to change from 1920 (full HD) down to 1280.