Editing upload limits: Descript's GB tiers vs Sume's seconds caps
Descript lists per-file size caps by plan (1, 10, 20, 50 GB). Sume's media routes cap by clip duration instead: 300 s or 1800 s in, up to 900 s out.
Sume's editing routes limit by duration, not gigabytes: source clips of at most 300 s for video-filter, video-frames and reference-ingest, and at most 1800 s for video-trim, video-inspect and audio-detach. Descript's supported-file-types page lists size caps by plan instead.
Descript's page reads "Free: up to 1GB per file, Hobbyist: up to 10GB per file, Creator: up to 20GB per file, Business: up to 50GB per file". Sume's numbers come from the Video trim, Video filter and Video inspect docs, read 2026-09-30.
What are Sume's caps per route?
Each route states its own ceiling. Trim also caps output at 900 s and at least 0.2 s. Video-filter and video-frames refuse longer sources at the worker.
| Route | Source cap | Output cap |
|---|---|---|
| video-trim | 1800 s | 900 s |
| video-inspect | 1800 s | Stills and transcript |
| audio-detach | 1800 s | 900 s |
| video-filter | 300 s | Inherits source |
| video-frames | 300 s | 24 frames per call |
| reference-ingest | 300 s | Manifest |
Is there a file size limit at all?
The docs give no size number. The one size-related error listed is source_too_large on video-filter, when a source exceeds the timeline download budget. Plan around the duration caps.
Which containers and codecs are listed?
Descript lists "MP4, M4V, MOV, WEBM, MKV, MXF" containers and "H.264, HEVC, VP8, VP9, ProRes*, QTRLE*" codecs. The Sume docs do not list accepted containers or codecs; they require the file to already be on media.sume.com and to pass a HEAD check as video (unsupported_media_type otherwise).
How does a clip get onto media.sume.com?
Import it first with POST /v1/media-imports. Off-host URLs are rejected at admit with unsupported_media_source.
Sources
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