Have you ever wondered if there is any real reason why you should convert the format that your videos are in? If you have, then the answer is: Yes, there are several reasons to convert the format of your videos.
To put it simply the video format can affect your video in many different ways, and converting it does as well. In particular there are three main reasons to convert the video format:
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Compatibility
For a video to be viewed on a device or platform it needs to be compatible. That means that the device or platform must be able to decode the data and display it as a video.
As you’re probably aware the range of formats that are supported on different devices and platforms can vary quite a bit. As such converting the format of your videos will let you ensure that your video is in a format that can be decoded and viewed on any of your devices.
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Compression
The compression that is used to encode the video data will play a pivotal part in its file size. Some video formats have more efficient compression, and are therefore able to reduce the file size of videos by a larger margin while maintaining the same video quality.
Converting the format of your videos will let you switch them to a format that has more efficient compression – and reduce the file size of the video. However the format must be compatible, otherwise you may have difficulty viewing the video on your device.
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Hardware support
Technically this is similar to compatibility, but it is a unique reason in its own right. Essentially a video can be decoded either using a software or hardware decoder, and for it to be compatible one or the other needs to be present.
However hardware decoders are able to use the GPU instead of the CPU to decode videos and are less processor intensive and require less power. If you want to view videos on mobile devices that is especially important as they have a finite battery life and you won’t want to drain too much power to decode videos.
Naturally there are other reasons to convert videos and optimize them for different devices or platforms, burn video DVDs, and so on. However broadly speaking the three reasons listed above are the most important.
Having a video converter available to facilitate conversions is definitely going to be useful. For example you could use Movavi Video Converter as an AVI to MP4 video converter to convert videos to more compatible formats, or even compress them by using the HEVC video codec.
Now that you know the reasons to convert video formats, you should be able to see how relevant they are. If you haven’t already tried to convert video formats in the past for any of the reasons listed above, you should make it a point to start – as it could make a world of difference and allow you to manage your videos far more effectively.
