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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Handbrake/ffmpeg: What free video codec to use for 720p videos? (slrpnk.net)

submitted 6 months ago by boredsquirrel@slrpnk.net to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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I have a lot of old movies, most will barely be 720p.

I ripped them off DVDs with MakeMKV and have sometimes 7GB files for 1,5h.

I want to convert them to something below 300MB, I often see more modern torrented movies below that size, so this should totally be possible.

They will only ever be played with VLC (Windows) or Celluloid/MPV (Linux) with hardware decoding.

But what codec to use? h264 and h265 are nonfree, arent they? But Videolan has some free variant of it and Cisco also offers their free version for h264?

Never heard of VP8 and VP9. Then there is AV1 but that seems to only have "264K 360° Surround sound 3D VR" options.

Man I just want to encode normal movies 🥲

What about webm? That is under "web" but probably also good?

I suppose I should use h264 for compatibility, but the web stuff will also be compatible. I would like the best and fanciest algorithms to have least dataloss.

Also, what to use for the audio? I think opus is best.

Thanks!

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[–] stevestevesteve@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

AV1 and VP9 are likely going to be your highest efficiency "free" codecs. AV1 is the way to go if you mean free as in free open source. It's not very likely to be implemented in many TVs or set-top-boxes, but VLC/ffmpeg will be able to decode any of these. Webm uses vp8 or VP9 which are "free"(made by Google) but it's just more specific settings for sharing online/viewing in browser.

H264/H265 has license fees for non-free software and hardware, but they will be your most widely supported option. H265 is approximately twice as efficient as h264 (meaning you can get the same quality of encode from half the file size).

Regardless of preset I think you can get handbrake to encode something reasonable from any of these codecs. Especially with DVD video you'll be able to crank through videos with modern high efficiency codecs

[–] kevincox@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I would try to avoid VP9. Hardware support is spotty and I suspect that new hardware is going to relatively quickly phase it out. AV1 is better in most circumstances except for a few devices that have hardware VP9 support but not AV1 (a few years of Android phones mostly). So unless you need a specific device you currently own to have hardware decoding support (only really matters if you are on battery for <=1080p content) just skip VP8.

[–] stevestevesteve@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

VP9 has pretty wide support, probably due to the Google (and YouTube) backing. I sincerely doubt devices will phase out any codecs, especially not VP9.

AMD video cards have supported hardware decoding of VP9 since vcn1.0 - well before they had support for decoding AV1