H.264 · CRF 26 · 720p · AAC · MP4

The scenario

WhatsApp status video optimization. H.264 because WhatsApp rejects other codecs, 720p to stay under the 16 MB upload limit, CRF 26 for aggressive compression, AAC/MP4 per WhatsApp media spec. Every byte counts.

The answer

Video Codec	H.264
CRF	26
Resolution	720p
Audio	AAC
Container	MP4

The command

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -crf 26 -vf scale=-2:720 -c:a aac -b:a 96k -movflags +faststart output.mp4

Why

WhatsApp compresses all shared videos to a maximum of 16 MB (raised from 64 MB in some regions). Pre-compressing to exactly 720p H.264 before sharing prevents WhatsApp from re-encoding and destroying your quality further.

Play

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