Video container compatibility

Working with video files can be a challenging task if you don't have all the required software to read the data. The problem is that a video file, also known as a container, is a type of file that has two parts:

• Video
• Audio

Each of those data types could come in a compressed or uncompressed format. Usually, a camera or video exporting software will apply some compression to the data to reduce their size.

How big is an uncompressed video file? The exact size will depend on several factors, but you can estimate:

• FullHD Video (1920 x 1080) at 24 FPS: 445 GB for 1 hour of video or 127 MB/Second
• FullHD Video (1920 x 1080) at 60 FPS: 742 GB for 1 hour of video or 211 MB/Second
• 4K Video (3840 x 2160) at 24 FPS: 1.33 TB for 1 hour of video or 380 MB/Second
• 4K Video (3840 x 2160) at 60 FPS: 3.33 TB for 1 hour of video or 950 MB/Second

With such large sizes, it is easy to understand why most video captured with smartphones or consumer cameras has compression. The compression software used for video and audio is what we call the CODEC. It is the same principle as when you get a ZIP file in your email and have to extract the file to get the contents.

If you have a video container, you need the CODEC to both read and compress video and audio files.

What is the best CODEC? There are several options in the market, but for digital video for YouTube or the web, it would be wise to follow some standards. For instance, using H.264 for video and AAC for audio are the recommendations from YouTube in an MP4 (MPEG-4) container.

The good news is that Blender supports MP4 video containers using H.264 and ACC for reading and exporting!