I have read this and several other posts on this site; however, none has answered my question:
I'm aware, that I can convert m3u8 streaming file to the mp4, and I only do this with VLC player on Windows OS, as:
Media → Convert/Save → Network → m3u8 location → Convert/save → startBy default, I select "keep original video" and "keep original audio" in the Video Codec and Audio Codec tabs, respectively.
Approach described above, works! However..
Original video is 1920:1080 resolution and converted mp4 file is 640:360, but I want to keep original quality..
Any tips on how can I do this? N.B. if there is any other (freeware) way except VLC, please, let me know.
1 Answer
When changing things like bitrate, resolution, etc. it will require a re-encode of the video. Its not like it can discard the extra pixels and copy the ones you want. The compression algorithm works on all the pixels together. It will need to re-do that work when resolution changes.
You can use flag -crf for as mentioned here for comparable quality. Which is designed for to maintain a certain quality. Crf can have a value between 0 (lossless) and 54 (worst quality) with 23 being the default.
ffmpeg -i input.m3u8 -s 640:360 -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 22 -c:a copy output.kv
