The SquishyFile Blog

Explainers on compressing and converting your files, and how SquishyFile works under the hood.

September 20, 2026

Handbrake Alternatives: Compress Video Without Installing It

Not every video needs a full encoding suite. A look at what actually replaces Handbrake for one-off compression, and where nothing does.

How to Compress a Video on iPhone (4 Ways, Compared)

iPhone video gets huge fast — 4K HEVC, Cinematic mode and slow-motion all multiply file size. Here's every way to shrink one, and the catch with each.

Why a 5-Second GIF Can Be Bigger Than a 30-Second MP4

A GIF and an MP4 solve the same problem — showing a moving picture — in almost opposite ways. Here's what's actually happening frame by frame, and why a few seconds of GIF can outweigh a full minute of video.

How Does a VHS Filter Actually Work? The Real Tape Artifacts It's Faking

A dropout on a real VHS tape is missing signal, not a bright flash — and that one detail is roughly the difference between a filter that reads as authentic and one that reads as "scanlines slapped on top."

How Browser-Based Speech-to-Text Actually Works (And What It Can't Do)

Speech recognition running entirely in a browser tab sounds like it shouldn't be possible. It is, but only once a model gives up a lot of size to get there — here's the real trade-off, not the marketing version.

Handbrake Compress Video: CRF, Presets and Target Size

Handbrake gives you every encoding control there is, which is exactly why it's confusing. Here's the short list of settings that change your file size, and what each one costs.

What Is FSR? How FidelityFX Super Resolution Works in Video Upscaling

FSR doesn't try to be smart about your video the way an AI model does — it's a fast, single-frame algorithm, and that limitation is exactly what makes it fast enough to run on anything.

What Are WebGL Shaders and How Do They Actually Work?

A shader is just a tiny program that runs millions of times a second, once per pixel, with zero idea any other pixel exists. That constraint is the whole trick.

What's Actually Inside a Video File: I-Frames, P-Frames and Why Editing Forces a Re-Encode

Pause a video and the frame on screen looks sharp. Extract that exact same frame as a still image and it can look blockier than you expected — the reason has nothing to do with your screen.

Why Do WhatsApp, Instagram & TikTok Compress Video?

The video looked sharp on your phone. Then you sent it — and it came back soft, blocky, or smeared. Here's the actual mechanism behind that, platform by platform.

Does Video Upscaling Actually Work? A Skeptical, Technical Answer

If the original footage never had the detail, where does an upscaler get it from? The honest answer involves inference, not recovery — and it explains why some upscales look incredible and others look fake.

Why Turning a Video Transcript Into Captions Is Tricky

A wall of transcribed text and a set of properly timed captions look like the same output from the outside. They aren't, and knowing why saves a lot of wasted effort.

Why Your Video Looks Blurry (and What Actually Fixes It)

"Blurry" gets used for at least four different problems, and only some of them respond to the same fix. Here's how to tell which one you're looking at before you spend time on the wrong solution.

Video Compression Explained: CRF, Bitrate and Resolution

"Compression level" is doing three different jobs at once behind one slider — here's what each one actually changes about your video.

Is It Safe to Compress a Video Online? How Browser-Based Tools Actually Work

You don't have to take a compressor's word for it that your video never left your device — there's a way to check, and it takes about thirty seconds.

Why Your Video Won't Send by Email or WhatsApp (and What Actually Works)

A video bouncing from Gmail or refusing to send on WhatsApp usually isn't a simple size problem — each app fails in its own specific, fixable way.

How Many Times Can You Compress a Video Before It Looks Bad?

If a compressed video looks worse than you expected, the problem usually isn't the compressor — it's that the file was already compressed once before you touched it.

MP3 Quality Explained: 128, 192 or 320kbps — Which Should You Actually Use?

Picking 320kbps by default feels like the safe choice, but it's often just a bigger file with nothing extra to show for it — here's when it actually matters.

MOV vs. MP4: Why Some of Your Videos Won't Open Everywhere

A video that plays fine on your iPhone but won't open on a Windows PC isn't broken — it's just in a container that not every player understands.

Best Video Settings for Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Discord

A video that technically uploads and a video that actually looks sharp once it's live are two different targets — here's how to hit the second one.