Best Handbrake Background video settings

Transcoding video for a full screen website backgroundA simple how-to with Handbrake and Quicktime

We love how full screen background video brings life to a website. It’s a great spot for your showreel, which would otherwise just end up on Vimeo or YouTube. But what’s the best way to reduce the size of your high-end footage?

For our “coming-soon” site we shot a short clip that we displayed fullscreen on our website. Here’s how you can do the same.

"But I’m not a programmer…"

There’s no HTML or JavaScript in this tutorial. It’s about transcoding: getting the most out your footage, for the least MB’s possible.

If you need a simple (free) solution for your website, Stefan Erickson created just the thing: Covervid.

Apps you need

Many transcoding tools are based on the FFmpeg library. They’re often quite daunting, littered as they are with options and parameters. That’s why we picked Handbrake. You can use MPEGStreamclip too, but that hasn’t been updated in four years. Additionally, we used Quicktime 7 Pro.