Understanding Quality Settings in Format Factory

Format Factory is quite a powerful program, especially as free format converters go. It’s useful for computer backup purposes as well as for changing the format of your media files and even reducing the size of your media files. Larger files not only take up too much space on your hard drive, but these monsters also slow down your computer and are impossible to send via email or put on a thumb drive. But there’s a balance to be found between reducing the size of the file enough to get the space you need versus sacrificing the quality of your video files. That’s where Format Factory’s quality settings come in.

Why Adjust the Quality Settings of Your Videos?

Using quality settings, you can reduce the size of the file (as well as convert it to a different format), gaining storage space while maintaining a minimum level of quality. Always remember that Format Factory cannot make a video or audio file any better than its source material. The recording you have to work with is as good as it’s going to get. You can only convert the file to another format while maintaining close-to-original quality or sacrifice some of the quality in order to achieve the file size you need.

What All Those Numbers Mean

When dealing with video, it’s important to understand some standards so that you will know how playing with the numbers will affect your output quality. Video quality is measured by resolution. Screen resolution is essentially a measurement of the number of tiny dots on the screen that make up the picture, like a mural. Higher resolution means more dots (called pixels) and a higher quality image. Lower resolution means fewer pixels per square inch and a lower-quality image. That’s why you cannot use a file format converter to improve the quality of video because you can’t increase the number of pixels per inch above what is stored in the original file. You can only maintain that number or reduce it.

Your typical TV (not an HD TV) has a screen resolution of 320 X 240. That means there are 320 pixels across the screen (the width) and 240 pixels top to bottom (height). Most store-bought DVDs in the United States come in 720×480, and your HDTV probably has a screen resolution of 1920×1080. You can reduce the size of an AVI file (one of the many formats supported by Format Factory) to as little as 320×240. Just realize that there will be an enormous difference in the quality of a 320×240 video and the DVDs you buy and play.

Format Factory Quality Settings

To set the quality of your video file in Format Factory, start the program and select Format. Drag and drop the file you wish to convert into the box at the top of the screen. Go to Change Render Settings and choose the settings you prefer. Remember that each video will differ according to the quality of the original. Click Start to begin the conversion process. Format Factory will take care of the rest!

Get control of your videos with Total Video Converter!