There are many things that govern the time it takes to encode a video. Sometimes our transcoding farm is over loaded either due to some maintenance work we're doing or simply because we're receiving hundreds of videos at any given moment in time. Consider that it takes as much time to transcode one version of your video as it takes you to encode a video at your end. Then multiply that by 4 since we produce (at the time of this writing) 4 versions for every video you upload.

But other than the above, there are other factors that impact the time it takes for us to transcode your videos and most times it is these reasons that slow down our processing since the capacity of our server farm is more than adequate.

1. The bit rate at which a video is encoded (by you) has an impact on how much time it takes for us to encode. Higher the bit rate you encode your videos at the longer it takes for us to transcode.

2. The bit rate at which we encode your videos impacts the time it takes for us to transcode. Since we encode your videos at a much higher rate (giving you a much better quality) than any other website, it takes us longer to encode your videos.

3. The number of passes we encode your videos with governs the time it takes. Most websites encode your videos with a 1 pass encode. Very few websites encode your videos with a 2 pass encode. We encode your videos using a special 4 pass encode. This produces a much better quality at a slightly lower file size but eliminates a few other issues videos on some websites exhibit. A 4 pass encode really means 4 times the duration of your video (at a minimum) multiplied by 4 for the 4 versions we produce for each of your videos. So that is 16 times the time it took for you to encode your video. 

4. The way you encode your videos governs how much time it takes. Over and above the bit rate at which you encode your videos (as mentioned earlier) the complexity level selected at the time you encode your videos determines how much time it takes. So say, you encode your video using the H.264 codec. H.264 is a more complex codec than say MPEG or AVI. H.264 has Baseline, Main and High complexities and then each of these has levels. So a video encoded (by you) using the Baseline (complexity) at level 3 will take us less time to transcode than say a video encoded using H.264 at High (complexity) at level 5. Some encoding software may show you this information as High@L5 or Main@L3.1 (meaning Main complexity at Level 3.1).

More complexity has the likelihood of reducing the eventual file size but increases the time it takes for you to encode and for us to transcode (because we have to decode and then encode) your videos.

It's a very marginal reduction in file size, but most people believe they should encode their videos using High@L5 or even Main@L5. This would be true if you were hosting your own videos and not uploading them to a website such as XR. But if you are uploading your video to a website then not only is encoding at High@L5 a waste of your time (because it takes much longer for you to encode) but it's a waste of time for us as well.