Audio and video

Audio compression

Codecs

Codec	Type	Best For
AAC	Lossy	General music and audio — widest compatibility
MP3	Lossy	Legacy compatibility
Opus	Lossy	Speech, podcasts, low-bitrate audio
FLAC	Lossless	Archival, music production
ALAC	Lossless	Apple Lossless — imports straight into Apple Music

ALAC (Apple Lossless)

Pick ALAC as the output format to get a lossless .m4a from FLAC, WAV, or AIFF. It’s the format Apple Music expects for lossless libraries. ALAC conversions are bit-for-bit lossless; they preserve every sample of the source.

Bitrate modes

Mode	Description
VBR (Variable)	Allocates more bits to complex passages. Best quality per file size
ABR (Average)	Targets an average bitrate. Good balance
CBR (Constant)	Fixed bitrate throughout. Predictable file size

Force mono

Turn on force mono to collapse stereo audio down to a single channel. Useful for voice recordings and podcasts, where nobody notices the missing stereo field and the file comes out roughly half the size.

Sample rate

The Custom audio preset has a sample rate picker, from 8 kHz all the way up to 96 kHz:

Rate	Typical Use
8 kHz	Telephony
16 kHz	VoIP, voice assistants
22.05 kHz	AM radio
44.1 kHz	CD audio
48 kHz	DVD, video production
96 kHz	High-resolution audio

Want to resample without touching the codec? Convert a file to its own format (FLAC → FLAC, for example) and pick your target sample rate. See converting files for the details.

Bit depth

The Custom audio preset also lets you pick a bit depth on top of the sample rate:

Depth	Typical Use
16 bit	CD quality, general listening
24 bit	Studio masters, mixing, mastering
32 bit	Floating-point processing, archival masters

Pair 16 bit with 44.1 kHz for CD-quality FLAC, or jump to 24 bit + 48 kHz for studio work. The dedicated CD quality preset is 16 bit + 44.1 kHz FLAC in one click.

Cover art

Picmal can embed album art into your audio output automatically. Turn on Embed cover art from the source folder in Settings → Audio, and for each track it looks for a cover image in the same folder and writes it into the file. Works for MP3, M4A, ALAC, and FLAC.

By default it looks for cover.jpg, folder.jpg, and front.jpg, but you can edit that list of filenames to match how your library is organized.

Turn on Skip files that already have artwork to leave existing covers alone. Picmal only adds art to tracks that don’t have any.

Audio presets

See compressing files for the full presets table.

Video compression

Codecs

Codec	Compatibility	Compression	Notes
H.264	Excellent	Good	Plays everywhere — web, mobile, desktop
H.265 (HEVC)	Good	Better	~50% smaller than H.264 at same quality
VP9	Good	Better	Google’s codec, great for WebM
AV1	Growing	Best	Newest, best compression, slowest to encode

Encoding speed

Speed	Encode Time	File Size	Quality
Ultrafast	Fastest	Largest	Lowest
Fast	Fast	Larger	Lower
Medium	Moderate	Balanced	Good
Slow	Slow	Smaller	Better
Slower	Slowest	Smallest	Best

Slower speeds give the encoder more time to sniff out efficient compression. Medium is the sensible default for most jobs.

CRF (Constant Rate Factor)

CRF controls quality on a 0–51 scale. Lower = better quality, larger file.

CRF Range	Quality Level
18–20	Visually lossless / archival
21–23	High quality, good file size
24–26	Balanced
27–28	Noticeable compression, small files
29+	Heavy compression

Frame rate

Drop the frame rate (say 60 fps → 30 fps) to squeeze the file down further. Great for screen recordings, tutorial clips, and anything that doesn’t need cinema-grade motion. Set the target frame rate in the video compression settings.

Output format

You can swap the container format while you compress. Take a MOV and come out the other side with MP4, MKV, WebM or AVI. Picmal handles codec compatibility for you; if the codec you picked won’t fit in the container you chose, it quietly picks one that will.

Set the output format in the video compression settings. Leave it alone if you want to keep the original container.

Estimated size

Before you run a video compression, Picmal shows an estimate of the output size based on your current codec, CRF, and frame-rate settings, so you know roughly how much space you’ll save without having to encode first. Change a setting and the estimate updates.

Video presets

See compressing files for the full presets table.

Subtitle burn-in

Attach an SRT or VTT file to any video and the subtitles get rendered straight into the frames. Because the text is literally painted onto the pixels, it plays on any device with zero guessing about subtitle tracks.

How to use

1. Click the film icon next to a video in the file list
2. Pick your .srt or .vtt file
3. Convert as usual. The subtitles come out baked into the output

Styling

Open Settings → Video to control how subtitles look:

Setting	Options
Size	Small, medium, large, or a custom point size
Color	Any color (text and optional outline)
Position	Top, center, or bottom of the frame

Styling is global. Whatever you pick in Settings applies to every video with a subtitle file attached.

Playback speed

Speed a video up or slow it down without wrecking the audio pitch. Useful for trimming down meeting recordings, rolling tutorials into time-lapses, or stretching a golf swing out for review.

How to use

1. Click the film icon next to a video in the file list
2. Pick a preset (0.25×, 0.5×, 2×, 4×) or enter a custom percentage from 10% to 800%
3. Optionally click Apply speed to all videos to reuse the setting across the whole batch

Audio pitch is preserved, so 2× speeds up a narration without turning your voiceover into a chipmunk.