WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging clients around, especially for Windows Phone users. One limitation though with the app is the inability to send particular videos due to their size. Whatsapp force-edits (shortens) your video to meet the 16 MB requirement for sending videos, which is a bit odd.
Luckily, there is now a solution through a free third-party app called WhatsApp Video Optimizer.
The app is free and simple to use. All it does is compress and reduce the resolution of your video until it reaches the appropriate size for WhatsApp. Even better, when it has completed the task, it can hand the video off to WhatsApp directly to streamline the process.
I shot a 4K video on my Lumia Icon and even though it was just 13 seconds in length it still came in at a massive 97 MB. No way could that be shared in WhatsApp. However, using the WhatsApp Video Optimizer, the video was shrunk down to 14 MB. Sure, resolution was reduced from 4K to 640x360, but the framerate and quality remained – and for mobile, that is all that matters.
WhatsApp Video Optimizer comes with a few options:
- Encoding speed (Slow/HQ or Fast/LQ)
- Output folder (videos are saved to a new folder called WhatsApp Optimized)
- Option to open WhatsApp after the task is complete
- Optionally record video within the app
Depending on your device hardware, video quality, and length, the processing time can vary. It took less than a minute for that 4K video at 13 seconds, but that was with a high-end 2.2 GHz CPU. Still, this is certainly better than nothing.
Since the videos can output to a folder, you can later re-use them for any other application too like Facebook, email, etc.
Overall, WhatsApp Video Optimizer is the ideal app. It is free (though it has ads), and it solves a problem that bothers many people. Now that some PureView Lumias can do 4K video, WhatsApp Video Optimizer is a must-have app for your collection!
Via: Windows Mania; Thanks, Alberto S., for the tip!
