Compress a local video by re-encoding at a lower target bitrate. Smaller bitrates reduce file size at the cost of visual fidelity.
When to use it
- Shrink screen recordings before email or chat upload
- Produce a lighter copy for mobile preview
- Experiment with bitrate before publishing
How it works
The full clip is played through MediaRecorder with videoBitsPerSecond set from your Kbps target (clamped between 100 and 20,000). Audio is preserved when the browser records directly from video.captureStream().
Example
Re-encoding a 25 Mbps screen capture at 1500 Kbps typically yields a much smaller WebM or MP4 file.
Limitations
- Browser encoders offer less control than ffmpeg CRF presets
- Double compression on already lossy sources adds artifacts
- Very low bitrates on high-motion footage may look blocky