Converting MP3 to Video-File (static picture)

Hello,

I have a 4 hour MP3 file that I would like to upload to Youtube. So I created a new project at Davinci, inserted a simple photo and stretched it to the length of the MP3 file. The result should be a 4-hour video on which only the one picture can be seen and the MP3 can be heard. In my imagination, the result should not require much more memory than the original MP3 file (250 megabytes). When exporting to h.264, however, the export file becomes hundreds of megabytes in size after just a few minutes and rendering takes almost 4 hours.

Does anyone have any tips on what I am doing wrong or what I could optimize?

Thanks!

Your imagination is playing tricks with reality. You are creating a 4 hour long VIDEO, I know you think because it is a static picture it should only add that little bit to your file size, but in reality, it is 4 hours of probably 24 frames per second of the same picture over and over and over.

You do not state what codec you are using and what quality settings you are using, but if you are outputting a FHD picture (1920x1080), even in H.264 I would expect this file to be many many gigabytes.

Okay thank you. My settings are Full HD, 24 FPS and h264.

What would be the best way for my results (at the end i Just want an mp3 File saved on YouTube).

In my imagination, the result should not require much more memory than the original MP3 file (250 megabytes). When exporting to h.264, however, the export file becomes hundreds of megabytes in size after just a few minutes and rendering takes almost 4 hours.

Try this:
- Set the framerate to 24 fps
- Use Native H.264, not any hardware-enabled encoder!
- Set the Quality restrict to Least or something like 2500 Kb/s
- Set Key Frames to Every 9999999999 (just fill in the max) frames (it will calculate the max for you)

I got a 4 hour video down to 143 MiB with the following settings.

The main question I have is, since it is basically a sound, why not use one of the sound centric platforms (for instance spotify or a podcast host) ?

In my imagination, the result should not require much more memory than the original MP3 file (250 megabytes). When exporting to h.264, however, the export file becomes hundreds of megabytes in size after just a few minutes and rendering takes almost 4 hours.

Try this:
- Set the framerate to 24 fps
- Use Native H.264, not any hardware-enabled encoder!
- Set the Quality restrict to Least or something like 2500 Kb/s
- Set Key Frames to Every 9999999999 (just fill in the max) frames (it will calculate the max for you)

This. I would also make it 720p to further cut the size in half.