Universal Media Compressor

A powerful, interactive shell script wrapper for FFmpeg that simplifies the compression and conversion of video and image files. It provides intelligent defaults, size estimations, and processing time forecasts.

Features

• Automatic Type Detection: Automatically detects whether the input is a video or an image.
• Dual Codec Support: Choose between H.265 (HEVC) for maximum space saving or H.264 (AVC) for maximum compatibility with older devices (TVs, legacy players).
• Smart Presets: 5 levels of compression (1-5) ranging from archival quality to extreme space-saving.
• Format Conversion: Supports multiple containers (MP4, MKV, MOV, AVI) and image formats (WebP, JPG, PNG).
• Estimation Engine: Provides estimated output file sizes and processing times before you start, adjusted for the selected codec.
• Non-Interactive Mode: Use flags to bypass menus for batch processing or quick use.
• In-place Replacement: Optional flag to replace the original file with the compressed version.

Prerequisites

This script requires FFmpeg (including ffprobe) and the file utility to be installed on your system.

# Ubuntu/Debian
sudo apt update && sudo apt install ffmpeg

Installation

1. Copy the compress script to a directory in your $PATH (e.g., ~/.local/bin/).
2. Make it executable:

   chmod +x ~/.local/bin/compress

Usage

Interactive Mode

Simply provide the path to the file you want to compress:

compress video.mp4

Direct Mode (Flags)

Bypass the menus by providing the compression level and format flags:

compress image.png -webp -3
compress video.mkv -avi -d -2

Legacy Compatibility (H.264)

If you need the video to play on older hardware (TVs), use the H.264 flag:

compress video.mp4 -h264 -d -3

Available Flags

Flag	Description
-d	Delete the original file after successful compression.
-1..-5	Strength level (1 = Best Quality, 5 = Smallest Size).
-h265	Use H.265 (HEVC) codec (Default, best compression, slower).
-h264	Use H.264 (AVC) codec (Higher compatibility, faster, larger files).
-webp, -jpg, -png	Force output Image format.
-mp4, -mkv, -mov, -avi	Force output Video container.

Technical Details

• Video Compression:
  • H.265: Most efficient, default for MP4/MKV/MOV.
  • H.264: Automatically used for AVI for compatibility.
  • Audio streams are always copied (copy) to prevent quality loss.
• Image Compression:
  • WebP: Uses qscale for high-efficiency lossy compression.
  • JPG: Adjusts JPEG quality levels via q:v.
  • PNG: Optimizes compression levels (lossless).
• Estimations: Sizes and times are calculated using ffprobe metadata and heuristic multipliers specific to each codec and format.

Credits

This script is a wrapper around the incredible FFmpeg multimedia framework.