How to Compress the Size of Videos on Android?

 

Video compression works by using a program called a codec to get rid of the redundant and/or imperceptible elements of a video. This is how it reduces the size of the file without affecting the quality of the footage. The difference between the original and compressed video's size is called the compression ratio. 

Video compression formats usually gain popularity if they're efficient, widely compatible, actively supported, and provided under a permissive (usually open source) license. 

Some of the most popular formats for compressing video streams include: 

H.264 (MPEG-4 AVC): Short for Advanced Video Coding, it's the most common compression format today. Platforms like TikTok and YouTube use this format for efficient delivery, as it offers high-quality video at low file sizes. 

H.265 (HEVC): Short for High Efficiency Video Coding, it's the successor to H.264. It often produces better quality video at smaller file sizes than H.264, but at the cost of being more resource hungry. It also requires a license for commercial use, which might explain its low adoption rates. 

VP8: Open-sourced by Google after its acquisition of inventor On2 Technologies, it's mainly used for short looping video formats, as an alternative to GIFs. 

VP9: Invented by Google, VP9 is a free and open-source competitor to H.265 and a successor to VP8. It's ideal for streaming above Full HD video, but is compatible with a relatively small variety of devices, so adoption is still slow. 

AV1: Short for AOMedia Video 1, it's meant to be a successor to VP9. Netflix is a major champion of this technology, recently rolling it out to its TV video player. 

FLV: Short for Flash Video, made for use with Adobe Flash. Adobe stopped supporting Flash in December 2020 due to security flaws in the software