What is stored
- Source or mezzanine files: the high-quality originals, often the largest items
- Renditions: each rung of the bitrate ladder, for each codec
- Audio tracks and subtitles in each language
- Artwork, trailers and thumbnails
- Recordings of live streams
Estimating storage
The size of the renditions is the sum of the ladder's bitrates multiplied by the duration. A ladder of 5, 3, 1.5, 0.8 and 0.4 Mbps totals 10.7 Mbps, which is about 4.8 GB per hour of content. A 500-hour catalog would need roughly 2.4 TB for renditions.
Sources are extra. A high-quality master can be 10 to 50 GB per hour or more, so decide whether to keep them. You need the source to re-encode later, for example to add a new codec.
Storage vs delivery cost
Storage grows with the size of the catalog and is paid every month whether or not anything is watched. Delivery grows with viewing. For a popular service delivery is the much larger bill; for a large archive with a small audience, storage can be.
Keeping it under control
- Remove titles whose license has ended, along with their renditions
- Move rarely needed source files to cheaper archive storage
- Avoid extra ladder rungs and codecs for titles that are seldom watched
- Set a retention period for live recordings
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