Reducing mp4 file sizes

[Mach234]

Hey how's it going?

Just getting into digital recording and editing and wondering if anyone here can give me a few hints and tips.

I've got quite a few documentaries that don't get shown often on my Skybox i'm trying to archive to free up space. I've set up an Avermedia LiveGamerHD2 capture card and using Recentral4, it's capturing and looking good. But the file sizes are massive about 30GB/hr recording. I've tried all optional settings outputting from the Skybox and 1080p/i/720 and Recental recording settings for H264 mp4 (the only option it has) with 1080/720, default/performance/quality profile, frame rate 30/60 etc, and really surprised the setting changes hardly made any difference to the file sizes. Looking at other 720/1080 streams I've downloaded (mp4/mkv) they come in at about 1-3GB/hr.

So question is can anyone suggest why the massive difference in file size when both mp4? I'm guessing maybe its an mp4 encoding setting that isn't available in Recentral?
Can anyone suggest a good bit of video conversion software/freeware for reducing file sizes with minimal image quality loss (or another good recording app)?

Any help would be great..

[ill88eagle]

Handbrake is the scene standard for (re)encoding with a GUI: https://handbrake.fr
Handbrake is just a frontend for FFMPEG tho: https://ffmpeg.org
FFMPEG is the scene standard for (re)encoding when you are comfortable using commandline
You can find extensive tutorials for both with a little googling

[Mach234]

Handbrake is the scene standard for (re)encoding with a GUI: https://handbrake.fr
Handbrake is just a frontend for FFMPEG tho: https://ffmpeg.org
FFMPEG is the scene standard for (re)encoding when you are comfortable using commandline
You can find extensive tutorials for both with a little googling

Awesome thanks have just installed it, will give it a go now