Why it exists
It started with one upload: two minutes of phone footage, 4 GB, an editor waiting, and a connection that dropped hours in. When the file finally arrived it was washed out and quiet. The problem wasn't the internet; it was the file. Phones now record in formats made for editing (ProRes, Log, APV, HDR) and platforms quietly mishandle them. The full story is here.
Becheloon reads the file before you upload, tells you in plain words what Reels, YouTube or TikTok will do to it, and makes a smaller copy only when that copy measures as close to the original. It runs entirely on your computer.
How we test
We test on purpose on modest hardware, because that's what many people edit on: a laptop with an Intel HD Graphics 530 (Quick Sync, 8-bit HEVC only) and a GeForce GTX 950M, running a standard LGPL build of FFmpeg. Each run encodes a real phone clip for a destination, then scores the result against the original with VMAF:
- The score is the harmonic mean over sampled segments, so a few bad seconds pull it down instead of hiding in an average.
- Frames are paired exactly (no time shift) before scoring; we check this on every run, because a one-frame offset ruins a score.
- The reference goes through the same scaling and colour conversion as the output, so we measure compression loss rather than the intended change (for example HDR to SDR for Reels).
- Before any score is trusted, the app scores the reference against itself. If that self-check lands below 96 the measurement is reported as unreliable instead of shown as a number.
Results from our lab run of 20 October 2026 (34 runs)
| Source | Destination | Size | VMAF |
|---|---|---|---|
| Samsung Log, 10-bit 1080p30, 2 min at 34 Mb/s | YouTube | 72% smaller | 94.96 |
| Galaxy S25 APV HLG (HDR), 1080p30, 2:23 at 248 Mb/s | Reels (converted to SDR) | 96% smaller (4.4 GB to under 200 MB) | 94.70 |
| Vertical 60 fps phone clip | Reels (60 to 30 fps) | at three bitrates | 95.65 to 97.58 |
| SDR 1080p30 clip | Light upload | at three bitrates | 95.35 to 97.59 |
On this laptop a 2-minute 1080p30 clip takes about 1.5 to 2.5 minutes to encode with Quick Sync; the quality measurement adds about 40 seconds.
What we haven't measured yet
- iPhone ProRes on a real file. The screenshots on the home page use an example ProRes clip; we'll publish a measured number when we have one.
- Ordinary phone video (already HEVC or H.264). The calculator's "~40% smaller" for it is an estimate.
- Log colour conversion needs the manufacturer's official LUT installed; without it the app tone-maps the footage and says so in the report.
Your own files will differ. That's the point of the app: it measures each one and shows you the real number.
Contact
Email support@becheloon.com. We read everything and usually answer within two working days. Found a number on this site that doesn't hold up on your footage? Tell us; we'd rather fix the page.