Editing Draft:Elixir/Bite-sized video transcoder (section)

== Background ==
Video files take up a surprising amount of disk space, so they're almost always compressed in storage, and while being streamed over the Internet.  In many cases you'll need to change the type of compression, generally known as [[W:transcoding|transcoding]], for example because video is stored in a high-efficiency, modern format but you want to provide it in a less efficient, more compatible, older format.  This process of changing compression takes even more disk space and loads of processing time.

Choosing the compression parameters requires several advanced graduate degrees or you'll end up with a huge and blurry mess.