Is render necessary to just combine mp3 and image into video file?

[frew]

Hello,
I would like to upload to Youtube a 5 minute mp3 I created,
but Youtube needs video file. In Shotcut I can combine a single image
with the mp3 and render it to mp4 video file for Youtube.

Can someone explain why it’s necessary to do rendering
just to combine the two files? I’m just curious. I’m wondering if I’m overlooking
a way to just combine an mp3 and a png file without having to do a render.
But maybe that’s just the way it is. To merge, join, etc and image with and mp3
requires render time.

So, is render necessary to just combine mp3 and image into video file?
Or is there another way to merge the two into a video file?

Thanks for any ideas about this.

[brian]

@frew

So, is render necessary to just combine mp3 and image into video file?

Yes. It is required.

But it is not really accurate to say “combine mp3 and image”. YouTube can not take an image. It needs a video. The image must be converted into a video - which is really an encoding of the image many times over.

[frew]

Oh, ok, I see. Thank you for clarifying that.
I think I get it now. Yeah, that makes sense.
Thanks again, much appreciated!