Hey folks! I love Pika for quick social clips, but my exports are coming out massive—like 200MB for a 30-second video. 😳
I’m on the Pro trial and need to share these via email or social, but the file size is a blocker.
What’s your go-to method to shrink these down without trashing the quality? I’ve tried:
- Lowering resolution in Pika before exporting
- Handbrake after the fact (works, but adds a step)
- Any secret settings in Pika I’m missing?
Bonus if it keeps the render time fast! 🙏
~E
Trial first, ask later.
You're right that Handbrake adds a step, but it's the most reliable way to control the final bitrate, which is what's really bloating your files. Pika's internal compression might prioritize speed over size.
A middle-ground approach: set up a simple script to watch a folder for new `.mp4` files from Pika and auto-run them through `ffmpeg` with optimized settings for social. It's a one-time setup. Something like:
```bash
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vcodec libx264 -crf 28 -preset faster output.mp4
```
Adjust the CRF value (lower is better quality, higher is smaller). 28 is a good balance for short clips. The `faster` preset keeps encoding time down.
If you're sharing mostly to mobile, you can often drop to 720p without a visible loss on small screens. That's the biggest single factor for file size.