Balanced, Small File, High Quality - what changes
What each Convertor profile sets under the hood, what CRF means, and when to switch to the advanced settings.
01Where the profiles are
Open Convertor, add your files with Add Files... and pick the output format. The quality step offers three profiles: Balanced, Small File, and High Quality. Balanced is selected unless you change it.
02Balanced: the everyday choice
Balanced encodes H.264 and H.265 at CRF 22 with the medium encoder preset, and the sound at 192 kbps. For most videos the result is hard to tell from the source at a clearly smaller size.
03Small File: when size matters more
Small File uses CRF 28, the faster preset, and 128 kbps sound. Talks, lectures, and screen recordings barely suffer; fine textures such as grass, water, or film grain start to look soft.
04High Quality: when you will edit again
High Quality uses CRF 18, the slow preset, and 320 kbps sound. It takes longer and the file is larger, which is worth it for footage you plan to cut, grade, or convert again later.
05What CRF means
CRF is a quality target rather than a fixed size: the encoder spends as much data as each scene needs to reach it. A lower number means a better picture and a bigger file; with H.264, six steps up roughly halves the size. VP9 and AV1 use their own scale, so the same three profiles map to 32, 36, and 28 for VP9 and 34, 38, and 30 for AV1.
06Going manual and keeping it
The advanced settings let you choose VIDEO CODEC and AUDIO CODEC (including Copy Original, which keeps a stream untouched), CRF or VIDEO KBPS, AUDIO KBPS, FPS, SAMPLE RATE, CHANNELS, and a new size. When a combination works for you, save it under MY PRESETS with SAVE CURRENT SETTINGS AS.
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