# Creating videos for YouTube: is MP4 or MKV recommended?



## SchochS (Sep 8, 2020)

Hey there,

I love OBS (so a huge thank you for all contributors!!!) to create my learning-videos for YouTube and my Moodle site.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc9TIvfzPWpNKDtCRpup3gA?view_as=subscriber 

Question:
What ouput format and settings would you recommend, given that the videos are solely created for upload to YouTube, then deleted.
So the format should be the  most straightforward and best quality just for YouTube.

Thank you for any tip where I can find more information about that topic.

Stefan


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## koala (Sep 8, 2020)

This is the relevant answer from Youtube itself:





						YouTube recommended upload encoding settings - YouTube Help
					

These features are only available to partners who use YouTube Studio Content Manager. Below are recommended upload encoding settings for your videos on YouTube.  Container: MP4



					support.google.com


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## FerretBomb (Sep 8, 2020)

Also, NEVER record directly to MP4/MOV. It is NOT a recording-safe format.


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## SchochS (Sep 11, 2020)

Hi there,

thanks a lot for you answers!

Problem for me now only: they seem to contradict each other. 

When I read the first one right, I should upload MP4 to YouTube. The second one says, I shall not record to MP4. 

Most videos (some dozens) I had recorded with MP4 up to date. No major problems. Videos are almost always quite short (10- 15' max), so if it would happen that saving a recording would fail, I could live with that by simply recording the material again.

That said: continue to record directly to MP4?
Which encoder? Actually I have set it to 'high quality, medium file size' and QSV Hardware encoder.

Stefan


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## koala (Sep 11, 2020)

Any video recorded directly to mp4 is usable only, if OBS is able to finalize the video. If it isn't able to finalize the video, the video is in its entirety unreadable. OBS isn't able to finalize, if it crashes mid-recording, or if the computer crashes or has a bluescreen, or if OBS hangs, or if the disk becomes full. If all this doesn't apply to your environment, you will have no issues with directly recording to mp4. But if something bad happens, the mp4 will be broken beyond repair, so don't complain if that happens.

We had many heartbroken posts in the forum with something like: "I just did the raid of my life in my game, but the computer crashed afterwards. Now my recording is broken. What can I do?" or even "I just recorded the marriage of my child, but my computer crashed. Now my recording is broken. What can I do?" The only answer to all this is "it's gone", if the recording format turned out as mp4.

The general advice is to always record to *.mkv and let OBS remux to *.mp4 after recording by setting Settings->Advanced->Recording->Automatically remux to mp4.


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## Insignia (Dec 15, 2020)

koala said:


> Any video recorded directly to mp4 is usable only, if OBS is able to finalize the video. If it isn't able to finalize the video, the video is in its entirety unreadable. OBS isn't able to finalize, if it crashes mid-recording, or if the computer crashes or has a bluescreen, or if OBS hangs, or if the disk becomes full. If all this doesn't apply to your environment, you will have no issues with directly recording to mp4. But if something bad happens, the mp4 will be broken beyond repair, so don't complain if that happens.
> 
> We had many heartbroken posts in the forum with something like: "I just did the raid of my life in my game, but the computer crashed afterwards. Now my recording is broken. What can I do?" or even "I just recorded the marriage of my child, but my computer crashed. Now my recording is broken. What can I do?" The only answer to all this is "it's gone", if the recording format turned out as mp4.
> 
> The general advice is to always record to *.mkv and let OBS remux to *.mp4 after recording by setting Settings->Advanced->Recording->Automatically remux to mp4.



Hi, I'm sorry for reviving this old thread but it was one of the first on google and I wanted to ask.
Why is this procedure .mkv>remux>.mp4 not the default procedure in obs to produce .mp4 files?
What is the benefit of recording directly to .mp4? Does it produce a reduced file size or something?


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## koala (Dec 15, 2020)

I don't know. I suppose it's disk space and performance considerations. Remuxing a multi-gigabyte video takes a long time with high disk utilization, and you need double the disk space. This could cause confusion for unsuspecting OBS users, so it's not the default.


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