If you used a video editor such as iMovie or Movie Maker, or created the video in another application, the best thing you can do is to change the settings to a lower quality when you export your video.
If you’re unable to do this, you can use a program to transcode the video file you’ve already got. Widows users can download Handbrake (instructions are below), which is open source. Mac users can use QuickTime Player, which comes as part of macOS.
macOS – QuickTime Player
- Open QuickTime Player (found in your Applications folder), then open the video you want to compress.
From the File menu, click Export As, then 480p.- Navigate to where you want to save the file (eg Desktop), and choose the filename you want to Export As, then click Save
The export window will appear showing you how long is left.
Windows – Handbrake
Open the video file
When you open Handbrake, you can open a file by clicking on the icon on the left, or drag and drop a file into the right hand side of the window
Select a preset
Click the Preset dropdown, then click General, then click Fast 576p25
Click on the Video tab, then make sure that the Framerate (FPS) dropdown has Same as source selected (if it doesnt, you can find it as the top option on the dropdown list)
Select a destination
Click Browse at the bottom of the Handbrake window to select where to save the converted file. If you’ll be doing more conversions in future, you can set the default location in Handbrake’s options.
You can tell Handbrake to automatically select a destination folder each time
Click Tools, Preferences, and then Output Files where you can set the default directory to save the converted files.
Encode it
In the toolbar, click Start Encode . You’ll see the progress at the bottom of the window
This may take a while depending on the type & length of video, and the speed of your computer. You might want to go and make a cup of tea ☕.
Finished
When the encode is finished, you should have a much smaller file which you will be able to upload to Kaltura. The original file, from a digital camera, is on the left and the file transcoded in Handbrake is on the right
If you’re converting videos from your mobile phones, you might not get the same levels of compression (as mobiles already compress their video), but it should be enough for you to successfully upload to Kaltura.