CR3 to AV1 Converter

CR3 to AV1: What You Are Actually Making

A .cr3 is one photograph — Canon's third-generation raw format, built on the ISO Base Media File Format with the crx codec inside, first shipped on the EOS M50 in April 2018 and listed by ExifTool as "Canon RAW 3 (QuickTime-based)". AV1 is a video codec from the Alliance for Open Media, not a file format, so a file has to be written around it: here the encoded stream is placed in a Matroska container and given the .av1 extension. Converting develops the raw into an ordinary video frame, holds that frame for a duration you set, and encodes it as a short, silent AV1 clip. Before going any further it is worth ruling out one easy mix-up: AVIF, the still-image format built on the very same codec, is a different thing and lives on its own page.

How to Convert CR3 to AV1

1. Upload Your CR3 File: Drag the .cr3 onto the page or click "+ Add Files". Queue several and Merge strategy chooses between one combined clip ("Merge images") and a separate file per photograph ("Video per image").
2. Set the Image Duration: Image Duration decides how long the still is held, from 1/60 of a second up to 10 seconds per frame, opening on 5 seconds. From a single photograph that duration is also the entire length of the clip.
3. Pick the Frame Size and Quality: Video resolution opens on "Keep original"; Fixed Resolutions, a preset height or an explicit Width x Height give an exact frame, and Background Color — white unless changed — fills the bars that a mismatched shape creates. File Compression starts on the "Very High (Recommended)" Quality Preset, with Constant Quality (a CRF slider from 16 to 63) and Constraint Quality (a maximum bitrate) as the alternatives.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert and save the file. It is uploaded over an encrypted connection, encoded on our servers and deleted automatically a few hours later — no sign-up, no watermark.

AV1 the Video Codec, AVIF the Still Image

What Lands in the .av1 File

Frequently Asked Questions

Did I actually want AVIF rather than AV1 video?

Quite possibly, and it costs nothing to check. AVIF is the still-image format built on AV1 — one AV1-coded image saved as a picture, with transparency and high dynamic range available and files typically far smaller than an equivalent JPEG. AV1 on its own is a video codec, so this page can only give you a clip. If what you wanted was a modern, compact version of the photograph that opens in a viewer, use CR3 to AVIF. If a video file is genuinely what you need, you are in the right place.

My player says the file is corrupt or refuses to open it. What is wrong?

Almost always the extension rather than the contents. AV1 is a codec and needs a container, so the stream is written into Matroska — a perfectly ordinary MKV file that happens to be named .av1. Some players decide what to do purely from the extension and give up before reading the header. Rename the file to .mkv and it will open; VLC and mpv generally play it either way because they inspect the file itself.

Why is the clip silent?

Because a photograph carries no sound. Rather than writing an empty audio track, the converter writes no audio stream at all, which is why no Audio Codec control appears for this conversion. If the clip needs music or narration, add it afterwards in a video editor rather than expecting it to appear here.

Why does the video run at one frame per second?

Because there is nothing to sample at a higher rate. The developed frame is looped and stopped after the duration you set, so a five-second clip is five identical frames instead of 150 — a distinction that costs nothing in file size but keeps the encode short. Any editor will re-time the clip to 24, 25 or 30 fps if a downstream tool expects a conventional rate.

Why does an AV1 encode take longer than other formats?

Because the encoder does considerably more work per frame to reach AV1's compression, and that cost is paid even when the frames are identical. It is the deliberate trade the codec makes: more time spent searching for redundancy in exchange for a smaller file at the same visual quality. If encode time matters more than size, CR3 to WebM with VP9 finishes faster, and CR3 to MP4 with H.264 faster still.

Will every device play an AV1 file?

No, and this is the format's real weakness rather than its file size. caniuse puts AV1 video at 94.28% of tracked browsers, with full support in Chrome from 70, Firefox from 67 and Edge from 121, but only partial support in Safari from 17.0. Hardware decoding — the difference between smooth playback and a hot laptop — needs a recent GPU or Apple silicon; everything older falls back to software decoding. Where compatibility outranks size, CR3 to MP4 is the safer target.

Does the AV1 clip keep the CR3's bit depth and editing latitude?

No. Canon's crx codec stores roughly 12 to 14 bits per channel of sensor data, which is what allows exposure, white balance and highlight recovery to be revisited long after the shutter closed. Turning that into a video frame means demosaicing it and baking the current interpretation into ordinary 8-bit pixels. The clip is one fixed rendering of the photograph, so develop the raw the way you want it first and keep the .cr3 as the master.

What resolution will the clip be, and why is my photo padded?

It keeps the photograph's own dimensions unless you change them, with the frame prepared at no more than 4096 pixels on its long edge before encoding — so a high-megapixel raw is scaled down to fit. Padding appears when the frame you requested is a different shape from the photograph: instead of stretching or cropping, the image is centred and the remaining space is filled with the Background Color. Match the orientation of your Fixed Resolution to the photo, or change that colour so the padding looks deliberate.