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How Do You Calculate Storage?
How Do You Calculate Storage?

Consumed storage space

Updated over a week ago

Here we will list some frequently asked questions we get about storage. If you have additional questions, please reach out the the helpdesk.

Q: Can I calculate how much storage my future videos will consume?

It's difficult to predict the total size of space that each of your added videos will produce in your Spotlightr account.

First off, we don't know how big the original video you upload will be.

The original videos that you upload to Spotlightr can have varied sizes. It depends on the video quality and resolution, codecs, format, FPS, etc. A 5 minute video can be produced and exported and be 50 MB or it could be 5 GB. There are too many factors to exactly know.

To get an idea of how much space the original videos that are added take up...in general terms and in our experience about 1 hour of video content will consume about 1 GB of storage space.

However that is just the original video that is added. We create many other files when you upload a video, and this will be explained in some FAQs below.


Q: Once I upload a video to Spotlightr, what is taking up storage besides the original file?

Every uploaded video will have these files:

  • The original video in the format it was uploaded in which is usually .mp4 or .mov format (video file is untouched by Spotlightr processing)

  • Video file in .MP4 or .M3U8 (if encrypted) in it's original resolution (processed and optimized by Spotlightr)

  • Additional files created in other resolutions in .MP4 or .M3U8 (so viewers can choose resolution to be served)

  • Thumbnail image in .jpg format

  • Email Preview image in .gif format (if created)

  • Optional: .vtt file (subtitle, if created)

So as an example, if you uploaded a 50 MB .mp4 file in 1080 and encrypted it then you will immediately have the following files taking up space:

  1. Original .mp4 file

  2. Processed .m3u8 file in 1080

  3. Processed .m3u8 file in 720

  4. Processed .m3u8 file in 360

  5. Thumbnail .jpg

The email .gif image will not be created automatically. You would have to create that for it to then take up space. Same with the .vtt files for sub-titles.


Q: How can I check how much total storage each video I add is consuming?

Open the Project that the video is in and then from the list of videos locate your video. Then click on the 3 dot menu to open a small window that shows the storage amount:


Q: Can I download the .m3u8 file?

No, there is no way to download that file currently.


Q: Will the linked videos consume my storage space?

Linked videos are not physically hosted by Spotlightr, so they are not consuming the storage space. 


Q: Why does one uploaded video take up around twice the storage of the size of the file I uploaded?

As discussed above, your original videos are converted to several different resolutions, therefore, they consume more space.

This is configured in that way to allow viewers to choose the resolution they want to watch. Slower internet speeds means they will need to watch at lower resolution.


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