Linux Multimedia Hacks

Resize a Video

Use the powerful transcode utility to resize videos completely from the command line.

Normally, I don’t find myself resizing videos. After all, you end up losing video quality if you lower the resolution, and usually I want to watch a video in the highest possible quality. However, there are certain instances where it can be useful to resize a video. One main reason people resize videos is simply to lower the file size. Each pixel in a video takes up space, so resizing a video is one good method for lowering the file size. Also, more and more portable devices are now supporting video playback. Since these devices often have screen resolutions of 640 x 480 or lower, they don’t typically support playback of videos larger than their native resolution.

transcode is a versatile tool when it comes to video conversion, and [Hack #63] provides examples of conversions between video codecs using transcode. This hack takes that process a step further and uses transcode’s video-resiz-ing options. Because this hack uses transcode exclusively, you will definitely need to install it on your system. [Hack #63] explains transcode installation.

There are three primary arguments that transcode uses to resize video: -B, -X, and -Z. The -B and -X options are complementary—the -B option shrinks video resolution while -X increases video resolution. Both options perform a fast resize on the video, but have some rather particular requirements to use. The main requirement is that the resolution ...