If you’re making YouTube videos, home movies or are basically operating at a “below Hollywood” level of video creation then the truth is you probably don’t need a complete guide to codecs!
However if you are like most people and are checking out various resources on the internet to improve your skills, it is more than likely you keep hearing things like “H.264,” “10 bit 4:2:2,” or “long GOP,” “shooting in RAW” and on and on.
That leads many of us to believe that somehow we are missing out on some secret sauce that would magically lift our video quality to some clearly higher level of quality.
So in this article I wanted to lay out in plain terms what a lot of that really means so that you can work out easily whether or not those more unusual or pro level codecs would actually apply to what you are doing.
Every time you hit record on your camera or phone, it has to have a way of turning the raw data coming from the sensor into a video file that’s small enough to save at a rate that the internal software and storage can keep up with.
After that happens you then need that video file that was created to be formed in a way that the average computer, phone or whatever device can playback that video smoothly.
Finally, and more relevant to the average video maker, that file has to be in a form that can be edited relatively smoothly again, by the average computer or device.
The bulk of the leg work in that situation is being done by the Codec which is a tiny piece of software designed for that purpose.
“Codec” is a shortening of two words which are “encoder” and “decoder.”
Most codecs are actually compression systems: they do whatever they can to shrink the file without losing picture quality.
Some are built to be great for recording (camera friendly), others for editing, and others for delivery (like YouTube or streaming).
You’ll often see extensions on video files like .mp4, .mov, .avi or .mxf.
These are containers, not codecs.
Think of a container like a box that has some information written on the outside explaning what the contents of the box are and how those contents were created.
So for example when you click Play on an MP4 file, the information written on the box (container) tells your device that inside the box is a video file and that it will need the H.264 codec to play that video.
Inside that box (container) are:
When you are recording a video regardless of the device, you are actually taking a series of images sequentially which gives the illusion of motion.
If you are trying to write that amount of pure, uncompressed data to the storage media on your camera or phone, there is no way it will be able to keep up!
Even at old school standard definition, the data rate is already huge with uncompressed SD coming in at around around 221 megabits per second!
A 30 minute clip at that rate would be close to 50 GB so even if the device could keep up with the rate at which that data is being created and stored, you would fill your memory cards pretty fast!
Now scale that up to 1080p or 4K and it gets pretty crazy so you wouldn’t fit much on an SD card, your hard drive would fill up in days and your computer would struggle to even play the file back.
Codecs fix this by compressing the video into smaller files that still retain image quality, allow you to record long sessions to affordable cards and you can upload and stream without needing insane internet speeds.
We really don’t need to go into the math here (trust me!), but the basic ideas behind how codecs work are worth knowing because you’ll see these terms everywhere.
Bit rate is how much data your video uses per second, like “50 Mb/s” or “200 Mb/s” to record the video information.
Modern codecs are smarter about squeezing more quality out of fewer bits.
HEVC (H.265), for example, usually looks better than H.264 at the same bit rate or similar at a lower bit rate but as we will see later, that doesn’t make it an automatic choice due to difficulties in editing.
Codecs also decide whether to treat every frame separately or reuse information between frames.
We’ll go deeper into this later, because it really affects editing performance.
Lossy Codecs (Almost Everything You Use Right Now!)
Most of what you’ll use as a YouTuber or home movie maker is lossy.
That means the codec permanently throws away some information it thinks is unnecessary.
Examples:
Each time you re-encode one lossy format to another lossy format, you lose a bit more quality.
That’s why the best practice is to avoid too many “generations” of re-encoding especially from one codec to another.
Lossless codecs are more like ZIP files for video: you get back exactly what you put in.
They often work by finding repeated patterns, like big areas of the same color and storing them efficiently.
This works great for graphics and animation, less so for noisy camera footage.
Use cases:
This is one of the biggest reasons some footage feels smooth to edit and other footage makes your timeline crawl.
Intraframe codecs treat every frame like an individual, complete image.
They are:
Examples:
Note: The term : “All I” refers to the way the codec creates the file.
Usually these codecs have a choice of three types of frames they can use to record.
They are “I” frames, “B” frames and “P” frames.
I frames are a complete frame unto themselves whereas the B and P frames are only partial frames that contain only information that has changed since the last I frame.
You can direct the codec to use only I frames but this results in much larger file sizes.
Think of it like a flipbook where you can open to any page and the drawing is complete.
Interframe codecs look at a whole Group of Pictures (GOP) at once.
This is fantastic for saving space:
Talking head videos with a static background compress extremely well.
Landscape shots with little motion also compress very efficiently.
But there’s a catch:
Your computer has to decode multiple frames just to show you one, which can make scrubbing and playback choppy on slower machines.
Many cameras use “IPB,” “Long GOP,” or highly compressed HEVC modes and fall into this category.
For a more complete understanding of this. the linked article explains the entire process of simple terms : Editing Problems Explained
When you see “8 bit” or “10 bit,” it’s describing how many steps each color channel can have in your video.
Why it matters:
8 bit is fine for a lot of YouTube content, but you can get banding (ugly stripes) in gradients like skies or soft light.
10 bit gives the codec more headroom and smoother gradients, which really helps if you like to color grade or shoot in log profiles.
Many broadcast and streaming specs for professional delivery now expect 10 bit 4:2:2 as a baseline, but for home and YouTube use, 8 bit H.264 is still extremely common.
Chroma subsampling is another way codecs save space: they reduce color resolution more than brightness resolution, because your eyes are more sensitive to brightness.
You’ll see this written as three numbers, like 4:4:4, 4:2:2, or 4:2:0.
4:4:4: Full color information for every pixel. Best quality, largest files, often used in high end post and VFX.
4:2:2: Half the horizontal color resolution. Very common in professional cameras and codecs, a great quality/size compromise.
4:2:0: Half horizontal and half vertical color resolution. This is what most consumer cameras, phones, and streaming services use.
For the Average User:
4:2:0 8 bit H.264 is absolutely fine for most talking heads, vlogs, and home movies.
4:2:2 and 10 bit become more important if you’re keying green screen, doing heavy color work, or delivering to picky clients.
Not all video is equally easy for your computer to decode and deal with and even more so when it comes to editing.
Modern CPUs and GPUs often have hardware decoders for popular codecs like:
Complex codecs at high resolutions and bit depths (for example, 4K 10 bit HEVC long GOP) can:
Quick fixes if your footage is choking your system:
Generate proxies: low res, easy to decode files you edit with, then relink to the originals for export.
Transcode everything to an intraframe codec like ProRes or DNxHR before editing.
An easy way to think about codecs is to split your workflow into three stages.
This is the codec your camera or phone uses on the card.
Typical consumer/YouTube options:
Higher end/hybrid cameras may offer:
When choosing a capture codec, ask:
As mentioned peviously, the re-encoding of digital video files created with one codec like H.264 to another will generally result in at least some degree of loss of quality.
There are codecs that you can use to do this that are designed to actually not lose quality and make editing easier for your computer but!
This is really adding an extra step that is possibly not even necessary.
The only time this may be applicable at the below “Hollywood” level is if you intend to apply heavy color correction and or grading or want to apply very, very advanced special effects.
My view on this is that it is unnecessary for the average user.
If your computer is struggling with your existing files then just generate proxies.
Just about every video editing software I am awre of currently is set up to do this easily.
Here’s a simple way to decide, as a YouTuber or home filmmaker.
Ask yourself where will this video live?
How much are you grading?
How much storage do you have?
How powerful is your computer?
Do you need a future proof master?
If yes, export and keep a high quality mezzanine file (like ProRes 422 HQ) that you can always re encode from later.
Here are some practical “recipes” you can adopt.
Average video for a YouTube channel, light color work
Short film or cinematic travel video with serious grading
Home movies you just want to shoot and share
The reality of creating videos at a YouTube or home user level is that you are most likely recording your videos on a mobile device or an average camera.
As such you will already be using the H.264 or H.265 (HEVC) codec to do that.
In addition to that you are probably using an app on your phone or a home computer to edit those video files.
Your requirements as far as color correction, color grading, special effects etc. are quite modest compared to a Hollywood blockbuster!
You will ultimately be creating the final video for uploading to a site like YouTube or maybe sharing with friends, both of which are best served by the codec you started with!
So in the end all of the above whilst intersting to know (maybe?) is basically irrelevant to the actions you are engaging in!
Don’t get sidetracked by people claiming that this codec or that codec will make a huge difference at you level… it simple won’t and will most likely add complication to a relatively simple process.
The ‘5 Second Intro’ Is Dead, Here’s Why… It is interesting to see how over…
Nested Projects - PowerDirector Video Editing Basics There is a particularly handy feature within PowerDirector…
Best Camera App for Android 2026 Top 2 Free Picks Well it's been a minute…
How To Record Multiple Microphones on One Computer If you have ever tried connecting a…
How to Design a Background That Actually Builds a Personal Brand If you are going…
Desk Setup for Filming, Editing & Live Streaming What I have discovered over the past…