---
title: "What is a video column?"
description: "A video column stores a clip with a timeline, so frames, audio, and timestamps stay addressable from the row."
url: "https://pixeltable.com/learn/what-is-a-video-column"
updated: "2026-09-29"
vertical: "Multimodal data"
doc: "https://docs.pixeltable.com/howto/cookbooks/video/video-extract-frames"
---

# What is a video column?

A video column stores a clip with a timeline, so frames, audio, and timestamps stay addressable from the row.

Updated: 2026-09-29
Part of [What is a typed media column?](https://pixeltable.com/learn/what-is-a-typed-media-column).

## On this page

- [How it works](https://pixeltable.com/learn/what-is-a-video-column#how-it-works)
- [What it is not](https://pixeltable.com/learn/what-is-a-video-column#what-it-is-not)
- [Comparison](https://pixeltable.com/learn/what-is-a-video-column#comparison)
- [Where Pixeltable fits](https://pixeltable.com/learn/what-is-a-video-column#where-pixeltable-fits)
- [Questions](https://pixeltable.com/learn/what-is-a-video-column#questions)

## How it works {#how-it-works}


- The row points at the clip and remembers it is video.
- A view can walk frames at a chosen rate without losing the parent clip.
- Transcripts and detections are further columns on those frames or on the clip.

## What it is not {#what-it-is-not}

It is not a bucket object you decode in a separate job, and it is not a chat model that rewatches the file on every question.

## video column: this, and the thing it is confused with {#comparison}

|  | This | Not this |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Stored | A clip with a timeline | A file you ffprobe by hand |
| Child rows | Frames with timestamps | Loose JPEGs in a folder |
| Query result | A moment in that clip | Only the filename |

## Where Pixeltable fits {#where-pixeltable-fits}

Pixeltable types the column as pxt.Video. Frame views and transcript columns hang off that value.

## Questions {#questions}

### How does video column work? {#faq-1}

The row points at the clip and remembers it is video. A view can walk frames at a chosen rate without losing the parent clip. Transcripts and detections are further columns on those frames or on the clip.

### What is video column often confused with? {#faq-2}

It is not a bucket object you decode in a separate job, and it is not a chat model that rewatches the file on every question.

## In the blog

- [Rerun vs Pixeltable: From 450 Lines to 15 in Computer Vision Pipelines](https://pixeltable.com/blog/rerun-vs-pixeltable-computer-vision)
- [Extract Video Keyframes 10x Faster with Pixeltable's frame_iterator](https://pixeltable.com/blog/video-keyframe-extraction-pixeltable)
- [Build Your Own Multimodal Search Engine with Pixeltable](https://pixeltable.com/blog/pixelsearch-multimodal-search-engine)
- [YOLOX Object Detection for Video Analysis: Complete Guide with Pixeltable](https://pixeltable.com/blog/object-detection-videos-yolox)
- [Beyond AVG(): Building Custom Aggregation Functions for AI Workflows with Pixeltable UDA](https://pixeltable.com/blog/beyond-avg-custom-aggregations-uda)
- [Kubrick Video Agent Course: Building Multimodal Agents with Pixeltable](https://pixeltable.com/blog/kubrick-video-agent-course)

## Related

- [Documentation](https://docs.pixeltable.com/howto/cookbooks/video/video-extract-frames)
- [Build a Complete Video Intelligence Pipeline in 20 Minutes](https://pixeltable.com/blog/video-intelligence-pipeline-tutorial)
- [Video intelligence pipeline](https://pixeltable.com/use-cases/video-content-analysis)
- [video-converter](https://pixeltable.com/tools/video-converter)
- [video-trimmer](https://pixeltable.com/tools/video-trimmer)