ffmpeg Screen Capture Compressor

Simple script to compress huge macOS .mov screen capture videos made with Cmd+Shift+5 into smaller .mp4 files. Useful when video quality is not that important, but size is.

Typically compresses ~200 MB .mov videos down to <1 MB with text still easily readable.

Usage

To run the script, use the following command:

python3 ffmpeg-mov2mp4.py -i <input_file> -o <output_file> -s <seconds> -t <seconds>

Common options:

• -i or --input: input video file
• -o or --output: output video file (default is input with mp4 extension)
• -s and -t: clips out seconds from the beginning and/or end of the input video
• c: bitrate compression; for fast scrolling screen grabs, may make text unreadable (default: none)

For full list of options:

python3 ffmpeg-mov2mp4.py --help

Example:

python3 ffmpeg-mov2mp4.py -i input.mov -c high -s 2 -t 5