SmartVideo accepts a wide range of video file formats. You don’t need to pre-convert your videos before uploading - SmartVideo handles the transcoding automatically.
Supported formats
- MP4 (H.264) - recommended for best compatibility
- MOV
- WebM
- AVI
- MKV
If you have your video in MP4 with H.264 encoding, that’s the ideal starting point. But if your source file is in another format from the list above, SmartVideo will transcode it during the optimization process without any extra steps on your end.
No file size limits
There are no restrictions on the size of the video files you upload. Whether it’s a 50 MB product demo or a 10 GB training video, SmartVideo will process it.
The one exception is the WordPress Media Library: WordPress limits the size of files you can upload there based on your server configuration. If a large file won’t upload, see Why do I get an upload error in my WordPress media library?
Upload the highest quality you have
SmartVideo encodes multiple quality levels from your source file so viewers get the best experience based on their connection speed. Starting with a higher-quality source gives SmartVideo more to work with, which means better results across all quality levels.
If you only have a compressed version available, that will still work fine - just know that SmartVideo can’t add quality that isn’t in the original.
Where to upload from
For the best results, use one of these sources:
- SmartVideo Library - upload directly through the SmartVideo Dashboard
- Direct URL - host your source file on Amazon S3, Wasabi, Google Cloud, or your WordPress Media Library and point to it with a direct link
- Vimeo embeds - SmartVideo auto-converts these by default: in the WordPress plugin, Replace YouTube & Vimeo embeds (under Auto-conversions on the Settings tab) is on unless you turn it off, and on other sites the snippet from your dashboard’s Configuration tab includes
autoreplace: { youtube: true, vimeo: true }. YouTube conversion is best-effort — some videos convert and some don’t — so for playback you can rely on, bring YouTube content into your SmartVideo library, and see Automatic Vimeo conversions for how auto-conversion works.
For a full list of supported file sources and setup guides, check out our video file sources collection.
Keywords: file format, MP4, MOV, WebM, AVI, MKV, H.264, video format, supported formats, file size, transcoding