2025-04-20, 05:16 PM
There are a few reasons people would want to have multiple versions for a single file. A popular one would be to have a director's cut and regular version together. If you don't care about having both, just choose which you want to keep and discard the other.
For having multiple versions of different resolutions each, this is usually done to have a pre-transcoded file. Some people want to avoid transcoding in real-time when someone wants to watch something remotely. Having a small file already available means that the playback will be faster since there's no transcoding to be done. All that would be in your way would be the network speed, but since the resolution is already lower than the original, the network will handle it easier.
It's up to you if you want to waste storage space on having lower-quality files of movies coexisting with the full HD or UHD copies.
It's a tradeoff that you make when it comes to your server.
For having multiple versions of different resolutions each, this is usually done to have a pre-transcoded file. Some people want to avoid transcoding in real-time when someone wants to watch something remotely. Having a small file already available means that the playback will be faster since there's no transcoding to be done. All that would be in your way would be the network speed, but since the resolution is already lower than the original, the network will handle it easier.
It's up to you if you want to waste storage space on having lower-quality files of movies coexisting with the full HD or UHD copies.
It's a tradeoff that you make when it comes to your server.