Best Ogg Theora Video Compressor
Published: 2010-04-25
A while back I did a comparison of the popular mp4 compressors. Specifically ones used to convert videos for HTML5 playback. Well here is a follow up, this time around though, we're comparing compressors for Ogg Theora.
I try to make my content cross browser compatible, but for this one I have no choice. You must use Firefox or Chrome to fully view this post. The newer the version the better.
Anyway, back to the post. I started with a small clip from the 720p version of Elephants Dream. It's a cool little short and I suggest going and watching it if you haven't already.
So with this clip in hand I ran it through 6 different compressors.
ffmpeg2theora (6.10 MB)- lots of settings
- smallest file
- moderate quality
- moderate ease of use
FFmpeg (6.19 MB)- same as ffmpeg2theora
- no sound (can have sound if you encode separately and then combine)
- has to be a size divisible by 16
FireFogg (18.87 MB)- decent settings
- fairly easy to use
- good quality at large size
Miro Video Converter (22.20 MB)- largest size
- best quality
- easy to use
- can't resize
- no settings for anything
QuickTime (17.37 MB)- good quality large size
- same export as any other qt
- moderate amounts of video settings, no audio settings
VLC (21.94 MB)- large size
- serious streaming issues
- small amount of settings
and for comparison
h264 (6.22 MB)
In the end I would recommend ffmpeg2theora. If you're comfortable with the command line that is. Otherwise, everything except VLC would work for you. For the curious here are the commands I used.
FFmpeg
ffmpeg2theora
If you have any suggestions for improving these please let me know in the comments.