Compressing a Video (Windows)
When uploading a video for sharing, it may be helpful to compress the video to reduce buffering and download time. This can be done with a free program called VLC.
Download VLC from the VideoLAN Website
Go to the following link to download VLC:
https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html
Click on the dropdown arrow next to the Download VLC button.
From the dropdown menu, select Zip package.
The download should start automatically. Select Save File, then click OK.
Once the package is downloaded, open your Downloads folder.
Right-click on the downloaded zip folder to expand the dropdown menu, then click Extract All...
In the window that opens, leave the destination alone and click Extract at the bottom.
In the extracted folder, find the vlc Application file. Double-click the icon to open the application.
With VLC open, you can right-click on the icon in the taskbar and select Pin to taskbar to create an application shortcut.
Compressing Video With VLC
Open VLC. In the top menu, click Media, then choose Convert / Save...
In the window that opens, choose Add...
Navigate to the video file you want to compress. Click on it to highlight it, then click Open.
The file will appear under File Selection. You can choose more than one file to convert.
At the bottom, click the dropdown arrow, then click Convert.
Under the Profile dropdown, select Video - H.264 + MP3 (MP4). Then, click the wrench icon next to the profile list to open up settings.
Under the Video codec tab, adjust your video’s resolution. You can scale it automatically, or manually choose a frame size. 720px or 480px should be sufficient.
Under the Audio codec tab, make sure both Audio and Keep original audio track are checked. Click Save when you are done.
Choose a location to save your converted video, give it a file name, then click Save.
You will be returned to the main VLC window. At the bottom of the screen is a progress bar indicating how much of the video has been converted.
The file will appear in the location to which you saved it.
When the conversion is done, you should see that the size of the video has been reduced. If the size of the file is still too big, try reducing it to a smaller video resolution or compressing the sound as well.
