Video File Size Calculator
Bitrate times duration, in megabytes — what an edit costs on the shelf and on the wire.
Video File Size Calculator
Results recalculate instantly on every keystroke. Nothing you type is transmitted.
What this result does not account for
- Constant-bitrate lane — VBR files wobble around the rung
- Video track plus one AAC toll — multi-track masters differ
In short: Ten minutes at YouTube's Full HD upload bitrate — 8 Mbps — is 600.000000 MB: 0.600000 GB, running 60.000000 MB every minute. AAC audio at 320 kbps adds 24.000000 MB, taking the file to 624.000000 all in. The law never changes from the phone clip to the 4K master: size is bitrate multiplied by duration, and the bitrate ladder is the platform's own.
Formula
MB = Mbps × seconds ÷ 8 ··· audio: add kbps × seconds ÷ 8,000
A video file is its bitrate made permanent: megabits per second times seconds, divided by eight to land in bytes. The bitrate ladder is the platforms' own upload guidance — 5 for 720p, 8 for Full HD at thirty frames, 12 for Full HD at sixty, 35 for 4K — and uploading at or above the rung matters because every platform re-encodes, and a thin source cannot survive a second compression. Audio rides along at a fixed toll: 320 kbps AAC is 24 MB an hour, small next to video and easy to forget on a 40-episode season. H.265 halves the same quality against H.264; the law and the ladder stay put.
Worked Example
- Enter the duration in minutes.
- Pick the export bitrate from the ladder.
- Read the file size and the per-minute rate.
- Add the audio toll for the true shelf cost.
Defaults: 10 min at 8 Mbps → 600.000000 MB, 0.600000 GB, 60.000000 MB/min, 624.000000 with the audio toll. Drive the bitrate to 35 (4K) → 2,625.000000 MB: an hour of 4K is a 15.750000 GB shelf question.
Strengths & Limits Of This Model
Where this engine is strong
- The platform ladder carried in the chips
- Audio toll added, not forgotten
Where it stops
- No codec modeling — H.265 savings are doctrine, not math
Practical Use Cases
Upload planning
the ladder before the export
Storage budgets
a season on the drive
Archive masters
bitrate vs shelf, priced
Methodology & Editorial Standards
Computation runs in IEEE-754 double precision at full internal precision; rounding to two decimal places occurs strictly at the display layer, so no cumulative drift enters the result. All monetary outputs use accounting presentation — grouped thousands, two decimals, negatives in parentheses — so figures can be transcribed directly into a model or working paper. Division-by-zero and out-of-domain inputs return an em-dash rather than a misleading number.
This engine was reconciled against an independent reference implementation and hand-verified for the worked example above before release. Our full five-stage review process is published on the About Us page.
Disclaimer. This calculator is provided for informational and modelling purposes only and does not constitute financial, tax, legal, medical, or engineering advice. Verify all figures with a qualified professional before acting on them.
Video File Size Calculator — 8 Expert FAQs
8 analyst-written answers to the questions practitioners actually ask — optimised for voice and answer-engine retrieval.
How big is a 10-minute video at Full HD?
At YouTube's 8 Mbps upload figure, 600.000000 MB — 0.600000 GB — plus 24.000000 MB of AAC audio. The per-minute rate is 60.000000 MB, which makes any duration a one-multiplication estimate.
What bitrate should I upload to YouTube?
The published ladder: 5 Mbps for 720p, 8 for Full HD at 24–30 fps, 12 for Full HD at 48–60 fps, 35–45 for 4K. Upload at or above the rung — the platform re-encodes everything, and a thin master loses quality twice.
How big is an hour of 4K?
At 35 Mbps, 15,750.000000 MB — 15.750000 GB an hour. That is a drive-planning number, not a streaming one: streams spend the same rate on the wire and keep nothing.
Why is my camera's file bigger than this?
Cameras record masters, not delivery files — higher bitrates, less efficient codecs, sometimes raw. This page prices the delivery ladder; a camera's own spec sheet prices the negative.
Does H.265 halve file sizes?
At equal visual quality, roughly yes against H.264 — which means the same shelf for twice the footage, or the same footage at half the bitrate. Compatibility, not arithmetic, decides when to use it.
How much does audio add to a video file?
320 kbps AAC is 24.000000 MB an hour — about 4% of an 8 Mbps video track. The audio bill card adds it so a season of episodes is priced with its sound.
Why does the platform's version look worse than my export?
Every upload is re-encoded to many renditions at lower bitrates — that is how one video serves a phone and a television. Thin uploads have nothing to spend in that second compression; overshooting the ladder is cheap insurance.
How is a stream different from a file?
The bitrate is the same spend in two directions: a file keeps the bytes on a shelf, a stream pours them down a wire. The Streaming Data page prices the wire side; this page prices the shelf.