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Best Ogg Theora Video Compressor

oggpixels

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.