VideographyDecember 07, 2025
Compressing Drone Footage
DJI files are huge. How to manage terabytes of aerial footage without buying more hard drives.
The DJI Bitrate Trap
Drones like the DJI Mavic 3 or Mini 4 Pro shoot incredible footage. To capture all that detail, they record at massive bitrates (100Mbps to 200Mbps). This is great for color grading, but terrible for storage.
Do You Need 100Mbps?
If you are just posting to Instagram or YouTube, 100Mbps is overkill. YouTube compresses everything down to ~15Mbps anyway.
Workflow for Pilots
- Raw Files: Keep these on a cold storage drive (HDD) if it's paid client work.
- Proxy Files: Use VideoLite to crush the files down to 10Mbps for reviewing, selecting shots, or sending rough cuts to clients.
This allows you to email a flight preview to a client instantly, rather than mailing them a USB drive.