Presets

A preset is a saved set of Compress settings — encoder, quality, filters, audio, everything on that stage. Configure an encode once, name it, and reuse it without setting it up again.

For audio, a preset holds your preference for each source layout (7.1, 5.1, stereo and mono) and the settings for every encoded track. A one-off override on a single track is never part of a preset. See Audio encoding.

Note

Presets cover Compress settings only. The classification and naming options in Settings → Naming & Tracks are not presets — there is one live set of them, and editing one takes effect immediately and is kept for next time. Nothing there needs saving or selecting.

Built-in presets

FileVerdict comes with twelve presets, grouped by what they are for. Each is a complete starting point: video, crop, filters, audio, subtitles and chapters. The line under the preset bar says what the selected one is for.

HD

Preset	For	In short
1080p Balanced (the default)	Most high-definition video	H.265 10-bit at RF 20, medium, capped at 1080p. Audio to AAC. Also brings 4K video down to 1080p, keeping HDR.
1080p High Quality	The videos you care most about	RF 18, with the original audio untouched, lossless and Atmos included
1080p Small	A bigger library in less space	RF 22 with leaner AAC audio
720p Compact	Large collections and smaller screens	Scaled to 720p, RF 22, lean audio

4K

Preset	For	In short
4K HDR	Keeping 4K	H.265 10-bit at RF 22 on the fast setting, which at 4K matches medium’s quality in half the time. Original audio.
4K HDR High Quality	The 4K videos you care most about	The same at RF 20. About twice the size.

Special sources

Preset	For	In short
Grainy Source	Older or grainy footage	Ultralight NLMeans denoise and RF 22. Grain is expensive to encode: on grainy 1080p footage this came out at less than half the size of 1080p Balanced, and no slower, with a graphics card.
Animation	Cartoons, anime and CGI	H.265 tuned for flat colour and clean lines
SD & Interlaced	Standard-definition and interlaced video	Kept at its own size. Deinterlaces only the frames that need it. Original audio.

Playback & tracks

Preset	For	In short
Smallest (AV1)	The smallest files, on newer players	About 40% smaller than 1080p Balanced at much the same quality
Compatible (H.264)	Older TVs, web browsers, remote streaming	H.264 8-bit, AC3 surround for any receiver
Keep Video, Shrink Audio	Files whose audio takes the space	Copies the picture exactly and re-encodes only the audio to AAC

Every preset keeps HDR10 and HLG except Compatible (H.264), which can’t: 8-bit video has no room for HDR. Instead it converts HDR video to standard dynamic range (SDR) as it encodes, so it looks right on any screen rather than grey and washed out. Use it for HDR sources only if nothing you watch on can play H.265. The conversion runs on your graphics card where FileVerdict can use one, and on the processor otherwise.

Dolby Vision

Re-encoding doesn’t keep Dolby Vision. What you get depends on the video, and Compress says which applies, with “Dolby Vision” and its profile next to the file’s codec:

• Profile 7 or 8. There’s an HDR10 (or HLG) picture underneath, the one players without Dolby Vision already show, and the encode keeps that. An 8-bit encode, like Compatible (H.264), converts it to SDR instead.
• Profile 5. There’s no picture underneath that other players can show: re-encoded as it is, the colours come out green and purple. FileVerdict converts it to HDR10 as it encodes, or to standard dynamic range with Compatible (H.264), so it looks right everywhere. The conversion runs on your graphics card. Without one FileVerdict can use, it can’t encode profile 5 video, and says so before you queue it.

To keep Dolby Vision, choose Passthrough as the video encoder (or Keep Video, Shrink Audio), which copies the picture exactly. Organising a file without compressing it keeps Dolby Vision too.

Note

Smallest (AV1) needs a player that can play AV1. Many can’t, including Nvidia Shield and most Apple TVs, and Plex then converts the file while you watch. Try one file on your own players first.

How long an encode takes

H.265 and AV1 encode on the processor, so the time depends on your computer and the video. On a modern 8-core processor, two hours of 1080p video with 1080p Balanced takes roughly one to two hours to encode; clean footage is quicker than grainy footage. 4K HDR takes several hours, and 4K HDR High Quality longer still. Standard-definition video and the 720p preset are much quicker.

Why audio is in every preset

High-definition video often carries lossless audio (DTS-HD MA or Dolby TrueHD) at 3–4 Mbps. That is often more than the re-encoded video, so passing it through can leave half the finished file as audio. The everyday presets encode it to AAC, which saves over 2 GB for every two hours of video. The High Quality and 4K presets keep it untouched. See Audio encoding for each preset’s audio.

Hiding presets

Settings → Encode presets lists every preset, and each has Hide. A hidden preset is left out of the Compress dropdown but stays in Settings, marked Hidden, with Show to bring it back. Hide the ones you never use and the dropdown lists only the ones you do.

Your own presets are listed first, under Your presets, above the built-ins.

Saving

Set up Compress as you want it, then go to Settings → Encode presets, type a name, and save.

The preset bar above the Compress settings shows which preset is active. Change anything and it reads Modified · revert — so it is always clear whether what you are looking at is the saved preset or unsaved edits on top of it. From there you can save over the existing preset or revert to it. Saving makes that preset the selected one, so the marker clears.

Default preset

One preset can be marked as the default, and it is the one selected when the app starts. Until you choose one, it is 1080p Balanced.

The built-in presets were replaced in version 0.8.0. If your default was one of the old ones, it becomes the nearest new one: Fast 1080p30 becomes 1080p Balanced, HQ 1080p30 Surround and Archive become 1080p High Quality, the 4K HEVC preset becomes 4K HDR, AV1 becomes Smallest (AV1), and Remux becomes Keep Video, Shrink Audio. Your own presets are unchanged.

Export and import

Presets export as JSON files through a normal file dialog. They can be backed up, kept in version control, or sent to someone else.

Every exported file records the format version it was written with. A preset exported by an older version of FileVerdict stays importable — it is upgraded to the current format on import rather than rejected. This is a commitment, not a current-version convenience: a preset you export today will still import into a future release.

Note

Imported files are validated before anything is applied. A corrupted file, or a JSON file that was never a FileVerdict preset, produces a clear error and changes nothing — it is never partially applied.

Where they are stored

In your operating system’s app-data folder — on Windows, %APPDATA%\FileVerdict\ — alongside your settings, not in the installation directory. Updates replace the application only, so presets survive them untouched. That folder is also what to copy when moving to a new machine.