Uploading and Transcoding

To learn how to upload to Wistia, please see our Quickstart Guide topic on Uploading.

Any file of any type can be uploaded to Wistia. For supported file types, Wistia creates web-viewable versions of the files. Explictly supported file types include:

• Video (MOV, MPG, AVI, FLV, F4V, MP4, M4V, ASF, WMV, VOB, MOD, 3GP, MKV, DIVX, XVID)
• Audio (MP3, WAV, AIF, AU, M4A)
• Documents (PDF, DOC, DOCX, PPT, PPTX, XLS, XLSX)
• Images (JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, BMP, DCM)

If a file type is not explicitly supported (or recognized) by Wistia, users will simply be able to download the file.

Wistia supports a wide variety of video formats including MOV, MP4, M4V, AVI, WMV, ASF, MPG, VOB, MOD, and 3GP. For easiest and most consistent performance, we recommend using MOV with the H.264 codec.

For best performance, we recommend resolutions between 640 and 1280 pixels wide and video bitrates between 1000 and 3000 kbps.

Yes. Wistia supports uploads of files up to 2 GB in size. There is no time length limit for videos uploaded to Wistia.

Yes. When the “choose a file” dialog appears after selecting the “Upload media” item, hold down the shift or ctrl buttons while browsing to select multiple files. Alternatively, after starting one upload, you can select the “Upload media” item again and choose another file…your original upload will not be interrupted.

Transcoding is the process of converting a file from one format to a different format. Most files types (video especially) are not natively viewable in a web browser. When a user uploads to Wistia, the system transcodes the file from its original format to a format which is able to be viewed by everyone on the web.

Yes. New Wistia accounts start with default transcoding parameters that are optimized for the best performance across all types of video (live action, screencasts, animation, etc.). We can come up with a custom transcoding recipe that is optimized for the type of video you use and your viewing audience (high bandwidth/low bandwidth). Once we have a transcoding recipe that you are happy with for your video, your account can be set to use that recipe to transcode all future uploads.

Yes. If you are a video expert and optimize/transcode your own video with formats and parameters for the web, we can serve those files directly and track them. Videos must be FLV's or use the H.264 codec with the MOV or MP4 file formats. When using H.264, Fast Start must be enabled to allow the video to start playing before the entire file has been downloaded. To enable this feature for your Wistia account, please email support.

Due to limitations of your viewer's internet connections and computers, we recommend transcoding to a resolution less than 1280 pixels wide and a bitrate of 1200 kbps or less.