Hi folks,

I'm not very proficient at video editing. I have some videos that I would like to do simple things to - edit out sections, increase audio volume, etc.

Everything I try yields a huge file size compared to the original. I just took a 112mb mp4 and ran a gain control filter on it. I tried to be conservative with the save settings, yet it ended up 735mb. Not all run that bad, but virtually all are significantly larger than the original.

Is there a simple way to save the file and save file size?

Thanks much,
Paul

Filesize depends mainly on the bitrate of video and audio.

Wich render profile did you use? If you use constant bitrate (CBR) your settings are too high. If using h.264 with profiles, you could try to raise the quality level (the lower it is, the better the quality is. That results in larger files).

And to get an overview what your input and output is, you can use
ffprobe <filename>
to check codecs and bitrates.

Thank you.

I've tried several profiles before. This one was an mp4. The original try turned out to be 1GB in size, and the display was enormous. So on the second attempt I limited it to 1200 pixels. I think I turned the audio down to a 68 bitrate as well. That yielded the 735mb size.

I almost always use a variable bitrate, and I don't think I've ever used h.264.

I tried the ffprobe command, but it was not found. Perhaps because I'm on XFCE, not KDE.

I suppose getting to the root of this will be quite involved. I was just wondering if someone could recommend a size-saving profile to use.

ffprobe comes with ffmpeg, so it should be available. Strange...
So, you do not have ffprobe. Do you have ffmpeg installed or libav? If latter, install ffmpeg instead and try again.

If you have a ubuntu based linux, you may want to check this source for a smoothly running kdenlive.
Check No. 1 here: https://kdenlive.org/download-development

Yes, Linux Lite is a ubuntu derivative, based on 14.04.

I don't see a ffmpeg proper in the package manager. libav-tools is installed.

I read that ubuntu page, and I will wait until LL3 comes out, which will have an advance ubuntu core.

Thanks.

ffprobe will not appear in your package manager as a separate pacakge
It comes as part of the ffmpeg package. You will have this package installed already. Or you will have avconv instead (libav-tools). If you have that instead - use avprobe