Reduce -r command recording size?

[ghost]

Is there anyway to reduce the size of the recordings produced by the -r command? I'm currently looking at over 4GB per hour of recording, I'd like to knock that down to 4-500 MB if possible.

[rom1v]

The encoding size is determined by the --bitrate parameter (8Mbps by default). But I suggest to keep a high value, because real-time (hardware) encoders must encode quickly at the cost of efficiency.

You could then re-encode the resulting file with ffmpeg:

# higher values of crf gives smaller size, lower values of crf gives better quality
ffmpeg -i file.mp4 -c:v libx264 -crf 25 out.mp4
# you can also resize if necessary
ffmpeg -i file.mp4 -c:v libx264 -crf 25 -s 800x450 out.mp4

[ghost]

I'd prefer to not have to re-encode, so ill try lowering the bit rate. If that doesnt work out I will attempt re-encoding but that will end up being very time consuming.

[rom1v]

A low bitrate for real-time encoding gives poor quality. If you reencode, you could reduce the file size by a factor of 10 (depending on the efficiency of your device encoder) without obvious quality drop.

[ghost]

Yeah for sure, the issue is I'm gonna have dozens, if not hundreds of files in the long term. I also don't have a dedicated machine to do the re-encoding.