I want and need my post-production workflow for the EdTechSR podcast to be as simple and fast as possible! I may continue to try and use third-party websites for YouTube video downloading, but it’s good to have a viable, efficient, and affordable local software option for video compression. Have you tried using FFmpeg with or without ffWorks for video or audio file compression? I’m pleased with the results so far. See my August 2016 post, “Audio Podcasting Workflows,” for more about audio podcast post-producation options. When you share audio podcasts, it’s still best to use mp3 format, and I prefer 32 kbps versions exported via iTunes. The first file in the screenshot above is the exported, audio-only version of the downloaded original YouTube 720P video using Quicktime for MacOS and default settings. Of course this is by design: YouTube is optimizing for streaming online, while Apple’s QuickTime Player default settings are optimized for localized playback. You’d think that file would be smaller, but you’ll see it as the second file in the above screenshot: It’s 1.16 GB in size! This demonstrates how much better YouTube’s video compression algorithms are than the default algorithms in QuickTime player. For comparison sake, in Quicktime Player for Mac (running MacOS 10.13 High Sierra) I exported as a 480P video. The middle file in the screenshot above is the originally downloaded YouTube 720P version of our show video, and it’s 440.2 MB in size. So keeping file sizes small matters when you’re a considerate podcast publisher. Some people pay more (over mobile connections, generally in the U.S.) by kilobyte for downloads. This matters because folks around the world can and do download these files, and everyone isn’t on a blazingly fast Internet connection. Those are relatively lightweight yet good quality podcast files. The 360P video version is 111.6 MB in size, and the audio version (32 kbps exported from iTunes) is a 16 MB mp3. My final two files have green dots by them in the above image. “ The case for ffworks / ffmpeg powered vi” ( CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer This also shows (dramatically) why you do NOT want to just export as 480P from QuickTime player: The image below shows file sizes for the different source and target files I used and created in post-production tonight. I used the H.264 video compression codec, changing the 1280 x 720 size of my source video to 320 x 240. The image I embedded above shows my video compression settings. ffWorks isn’t free, but permits 10 free trial uses, and provides a more user-friendly GUI (graphical user interface) for accessing and using the powerful options in FFmpeg. FFmpeg works on other platforms (it’s Linux-based) but it’s a command line tool. I use a MacOS laptop, and ffWorks is Apple-only. My new answer is the shareware software program ffWorks paired with the open source video compression software FFmpeg. ![]() So here’s the challenge: What’s a free and relatively fast way to compress video when the only source video format you have is 720P from YouTube? Now it’s possible to download offline versions of videos if you subscribe to YouTube Premium (formerly YouTube Red,) but that isn’t something I’ve paid for or at this point am interested in paying for. This is a cat and mouse game: Google/YouTube has historically tried to prevent the downloading of videos other than those you personally upload. ![]() Those sites have included en.,, and some others which are now offline or have changed to the point where I’m questioning if they are still reputable / safe sites that are malware free. I’ve used a variety of different third party websites over the past couple years to download smaller (360P) video versions of our shows. Even though the cost of hosting our audio and video archives on Amazon S3 is very small at this point (related to our small but highly devoted fanbase!) it’s beneficial to archive a lower bitrate video than the 720P version YouTube lets creators download directly from their “YouTube Creator Studio” dashboard. Even though YouTube automatically encodes episodes at varying bitrates / quality settings / screen dimensions to accommodate viewers with slower Internet connections, it’s not always easy to download those lower quality versions. This allows us to automate the creation of an updated YouTube playlist of all our episodes, and also provides a video archive of the show each week which I can download. We livestream our EdTechSR webshows each week on YouTube via a Hangout on Air. “ ffworks settings” ( CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer
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