My Journey Into Modern Video Compression

And Why I Ended Up Using Shutter Encoder,  AV1 and opus

After testing many tools to compress my album/personal videos from the last years, I use AV1 + Opus + MKV with Shutter Encoder as my daily workflow. It keeps things practical while giving modern compression, metadata preservation, filter preview, and predictable results.

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AV1, Constant Quality, VBR, and Variable Framerate (VFR)

AV1 is already supported by most modern devices and will remain standard for a long time. Its main advantage:

AV1 lets you decide how much quality to preserve while greatly reducing file size, so the loss becomes dependent on your preference of videos.

AV1 also supports variable bitrate (VBR), where the encoder automatically uses fewer bits on simple scenes and more on complex ones. Combined with constant-quality (CQ) mode, this lets you target a consistent visual quality across the file without worrying about a fixed bitrate. It works very well with variable framerate (VFR), where frames are only added when something changes, saving additional space without affecting the perceived video quality.

Ultimately, AV1 is so strong that multi pass encoding could be a thing of the past.

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Audio Choice: Opus

Opus is the modern standard for speech and even general audio. At 48 kbps mono, its quality is typically transparent for spoken content. Even 92 kbps stereo is hard to distinguish from lossless for most listeners. Listeners tests online are very clear about this.

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Why Shutter Encoder

Shutter Encoder ended up being the most practical tool I tested from a dozen. Its strengths:

• Real-time live output preview of filters (color, nlmeans denoise, ..)

• Full AV1 (SVT-AV1) + Opus support

• Metadata and subtitles preserved

• Simple VFR controls, built-in stabilizer and pretty adequate filters
  

What I miss is to give the ffmpeg engine it uses some fine control, like custom command line parameters, but it's the best so far

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Container: Why MKV

MKV is my preferred container because it supports many codecs, full metadata, multiple subtitle formats, chapters and advanced tags etc.

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Still ffmpeg command line?

Most programs today use FFmpeg under the hood. For precise filter chains or scripted processing, I can still run FFmpeg directly, e.g.:

-filter_complex "eq=gamma=1.25, colorcorrect=rl=-.06:rh=-.04, nlmeans=s=10:p=7:r=1,scale=720:405"

Shutter Encoder handles most cases, but FFmpeg remains the reference for full control. But for now, Shutter's defaults seem sufficient.

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Other Tools in Short

• HandBrake – USed to be my fall back after Mediacoder went dead. It has very good AV1 support but fewer fine controls, they removed filters and  no live output preview 

• Shotcut – strong filter library but mostly WebM for AV1

• FFQueue / StaxRip –I wasn’t able to get them working quickly enough during my testing but could be some candidates

• Avidemux / MediaCoder – missing features or outdated

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Which Encoder Tune to Pick? (VQ, PSNR, SSIM)

• VQ (Visual Quality) – recommended; best for real-world viewing

• PSNR – theoretical pixel fidelity; rarely useful for humans

• SSIM – structure/edge preservation; good compromise for sharp content

For most videos, VQ aligns best with human perception.
I used SSIM once for a video explaining paraglider videos with animations.

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Final Summary

A compact, modern, and future-proof video workflow:

• Codec: AV1 (use CQ → VBR behavior under the hood)

• Audio: Opus (48 kbps mono for speech)

• Container: MKV

• Tool: Shutter Encoder for daily use; ffmpeg for scripts and exact control

• Filters: nlmeans, color correction, optional scaling

• Framerate: VFR (if needed and time with two‑step compression for an upper cap)

This combination gives clear control over quality, small file sizes, and long-term compatibility without relying entirely on command-line tools.

Some small extras

• Lower framerate while still using VFR.
  You cannot do a vfr and go for lower framerate in one go, 2 steps are required (e.g.first step exact copy with blending framerates)
  
  
• Shutter Encoder needs admin priviliges (since it is writtin in java?)
  
  
• Disable Windows background throttling. 
  Windows 11 did it again. If you want to decode in the background and not wait days for encoding heavy video with maximum encoder settings, you need this (depending on the app you use):
  
  powercfg /powerthrottling disable /path "C:\Program Files\Shutter Encoder\JRE\bin\javaw.exe"


• IF you have an nvidia graphics card the NVENC-AV1encoder is faster, but SVT-AV1 (CPU) still gives better visual quality and more tuning options. Maybe reserved for huge videos with high quality demands.
  
  
• Not tested, but was on my list: KDenlive
  
  
• I use a fast encoder preset (like 9) to see the results of filesize and quality and then set it on minimum speed and best encoding in the background whilt watching youtube or just leaving it sit while doing something not on PC