Is it better to have one large Media Source File, or many small ones

Hi all,

I was just wondering what is better practice…

For this project I am currently working on there is a sequence of videos I wish to play when certain conditions are met (meaning they will loop until conditions are true).
I was wondering, what is better practice, to export each clip as a separate file opened into media player once required conditions are met, or instead to have a large single video (~ five minutes long) which is used as a kind of atlas, and in blueprints just playing between specific timecodes for each stage of the sequence.

Hope thats not too vague, let me know if anything is unclear.

Thanks.

I dont really know but I would imagine that if the smaller separate videos were only references in different Levels then you could reduce memory usage by not having to load the entire thing when you will only be using one or two of the segments in any particular level. But if they are all meant to be on the same level and especially if they need to quickly switch from one segment to another it seems like it would work better to use the atlas approach.

I dont actually know how the engine handles them or if they can be streamed, either. If they can be streamed then my idea of the memory advantage is moot.

Does anyone here know how it all works at the performance, memory management?

You were asking about best practice partly because of making the code flexible and resilient too i imagine so that it can become more reliable and easy to work with. Sorry i wish i could be more helpful but those are my thoughts and guesses on the matter

@mightyenigma thank you very much for your answer, I appreciate any thoughts even if you don’t fully have the answer.

I should’ve clarified - its is in one level and they are loading during gameplay, this is why I thought maybe one large file is better.
I think I will try separate files first as from a workflow perspective it’s easier for me but I’ll see if it’s too taxing.