what strategy to have smaller file while i record my screen where we see camera of my dog when i am not home. no need for quality

[videocool]

Hi . I care for my dog and he barks and stresses when i leave so I have to record when i leave for the protocol i do to desensitize him.

I dont need good quality of image . i need to see him move, yawn . I need good audio though since i need to hear the whines and bark.

So i read that playing with settings might not be the best way to minimize the size of the video .

I will archive the video to see his evolution and 2 gig for 1h40 min is way to much heavy.

I Am OPEN to any other strategy to end up with a file that is easiliy accessible yet takes less space.

By the way i already use free video converter dvdvideosoft to shrink a video once it is made with obs.

?wich parameter are ok to change in obs to save on space and still have ok vid mediocre vid and good audio ?

thanks

 

[qhobbes]

Let's start with resolution. Old analog TV (in US) was 640x480. Can you see a dog move and yawn on old analog TV?

YouTube recommends 2.5 Mbps for 480 at 30 FPS, but that's for h.264. If your graphics card/encoder supports H.265 or AV1 then you could go half on the Bitrate. You could also lower the frame rate to 24 and use a slightly lower Bitrate.

Static content uses less Bitrate so if your dog is not going to appear at the top of the frame, you could trim the source and just have black bar at the top and further lower the Bitrate.

 

[koala]

Factors that go into video file size:

• resolution: double the resolution, 4 times the size
• fps: double the fps, double the size
• encoder: h.264 uses double the size than h.265 (hevc) for the same quality
• rate control: CBR has predictable file size (bitrate * duration) but wastes space if nothing changes. CQP/CRF has variable file size but uses no space at all while there is a static image
• for CQP/CRF rate control: adjusting the CQ/CRF quality parameter (the value you can set from 0..50): a change by 3 about halves/doubles file size

My recommendation is to find a proper resolution (doesn't need to be full hd), and 30 fps is sufficient if you don't care for best visual appearance but just want to see what's going on.

Now check Settings > Output. If you're in simple output mode, check recording quality. Try "High Quality, medium file size".

If this gets still too big files, switch to advanced output mode and switch to the Settings > Output > Recording tab. As video encoder, set the same you had in simple output mode. Choose a hardware encoder, if possible (Quicksync, Nvenc or AMD - depends on your graphics card). If you're offered Quicksync or Nvenc NHEVC, use this.

As rate control choose CRF, ICQ or CQP (depends on the encoder you selected). DONT use CBR/VBR/AVBR.
As quality (the CRF, ICQ or CQ value) start with 25 if you chose a H.264 encoder and 30 if you chose a HEVC encoder.
Now do test recordings. If the file size is still too big and you're ready to sacrifice some quality, increase the quality parameter by 3 and try again. 50 is a bloody mess with most tiny file size, 10 is gigantic files with superb quality. Find a setting between. You will probably get acceptable quality up to 35.

 

[Momplary]

To record in a smaller footprint, lower the resolution (for example, 720p) and frame rate (24-30 FPS). For even greater compression, you can reduce the bitrate or compress the video in HandBrake. This will make the file smaller, but you can still see what the dog is doing.

 

[videocool]

hi i have a elite desk Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590 CPU @ 3.30GHz 3.30 GHz .
From what i know it does not have a dedicated gpu. does that remove some of the recommendation made before?

QSV and x264 are the 2 options shown.

 

[videocool]

To record in a smaller footprint, lower the resolution (for example, 720p) and frame rate (24-30 FPS). For even greater compression, you can reduce the bitrate or compress the video in HandBrake. This will make the file smaller, but you can still see what the dog is doing.

hi when you say compress do you mean something like zip file? or something similar to dvdvideosoft free video converter?

 

[koala]

hi i have a elite desk Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590 CPU @ 3.30GHz 3.30 GHz .
From what i know it does not have a dedicated gpu. does that remove some of the recommendation made before?

QSV and x264 are the 2 options shown.

Use QSV (that's the Quicksync hardware encoder within your CPU). Everything I said still applies.