Video-Compression

Discord compliant file size limit video compression: Discord has too small file size limit for free. And, any online video compressor as cloud service or standalone installer ones have either file upload limit or too many options to configure and we never know what's the optimal configuration to go with.

A normal user isn't curious about these configuration and just want a targeted file size video compression with minimal quality loss.

So, here's a simple drag and drop usage (In Windows) easy solution.

Tip

Visit this page for Architectural overview and more.

Requirements

For running the script locally (your own build):

• Python 3.x
• ffmpeg installed and added to PATH
• CUDA capable GPU for faster encoding (Optional)
• HEVC or H.264 encoding capable GPU (Optional)

For using prebuilt binaries from releases, you just need to download the executable for your platform; no installation required. To make full use of GPU acceleration, you need a compatible NVIDIA/AMD/Intel GPU that supports hardware-accelerated video encoding.

Note

You may view if your Nvidia GPU supports NVENC here and keep your Nvidia GPU driver version 570.0 or higher.

How to use

• In Windows:
  • Download any of the target filesize build from releases.
  • Drag and drop your video on the executable. (Or run in Command Prompt/Terminal as ./{size}mb-{codec}-win64.exe <input.mp4> [output.mp4])

Demo.mp4

• In Linux:

  • Download your desired build from releases.
  • Make your downloaded file executable: chmod +x {size}mb-{codec}-linux
  • Run in terminal as ./{size}mb-{codec}-linux <input.mp4> [output.mp4] [target_size_in_mb]

• In MacOS:

  • Usage steps are the same as Linux (using the {size}mb-{codec}-macos executable).
  • You may need to allow the application from Settings > Privacy & Security since MacOS blocks unsigned applications initially unless allowed.

Note

{codec} can be either hevc or h264 depending on the build you downloaded. HEVC offers better compression efficiency, while H.264 offers better compatibility with older devices.

How to Build

To build the preset executables yourself:

Prerequisites

• Python 3.x
• PyInstaller (pip install pyinstaller)

Building

python build.py

This will:

1. Automatically download FFmpeg/FFprobe for your platform (if not already present)
2. Generate all preset executables (10mb, 50mb, 100mb, 500mb for both HEVC and H.264 codecs) in dist/
3. Clean up build artifacts and downloaded binaries

To keep build artifacts for debugging:

python build.py --verbose

Encoder Priority Logic

Platform	HEVC Encoder Priority Chain	H.264 Encoder Priority Chain	Notes
Windows	hevc_nvenc -> hevc_amf -> hevc_qsv -> libx265	h264_nvenc -> h264_amf -> h264_qsv -> libx264	Explicit vendor-specific encoders are required.
Linux	hevc_nvenc -> hevc_vaapi -> libx265	h264_nvenc -> h264_vaapi -> libx264	vaapi covers both AMD and Intel integrated/dedicated.
MacOS	hevc_videotoolbox -> libx265	h264_videotoolbox -> libx264	VideoToolbox handles AMD, Intel & Apple Silicon. Older Nvidia GPUs use it if supported.

Considering the wide variety of hardware configurations, the script uses a fallback mechanism trying each encoder sequentially to select the best hardware-accelerated encoder available on the user's system before defaulting to software (CPU) encoding:

*_nvenc > *_vaapi > *_videotoolbox > *_amf > *_qsv > libx265 / libx264 (CPU)

Note

Only NVENC supports Two-Pass encoding among the listed encoders. Other encoders use Single-Pass encoding only. If your dedicated GPU is being bypassed in favor of integrated GPU or CPU encoding, you'll need to manually change the priority logic in the script to suit your hardware setup. Or, you may simply remove unwanted encoders from the priority list in the script, build the executable again, and use that custom build.