The FFMPEG utility is used for modifying media files. We're going to learn how to reduce the bitrate of a video file.

We will use the following command.

ffmpeg -i [input file] -b [target bitrate] [output file]

In our example, the origin file will be named input.mp4, the output file will be named output.mp4, and the target bitrate will be 500 kbps. So the command will look like this:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -b 500k output.mp4

Once executed the output file output.mp4 will be at the specified bitrate.