As an amateur deal with codecs / formats. What and how? How to use with free software?

Question

Video

I shoot for myself on xiomi yi 1080p/50fps
Then I make a simple movie. Processing is simple: cutting / gluing, adjustment (brightness / contrast / curves / color), titles, photo insertion, sound overlay (background music).
Tried to work in Adobe Premiere. Liked it very much, but expensive. There are various free versions of commercial products, but there are restrictions either on the number of projects, or on the duration, or it is impossible to make the final export of normal quality.
I tried Shortcut, in principle everything works as it should, it solves my problems.
And then I came across the problem of choosing export settings (in Premier, I did everything on automatic settings). In shortcut, you need to select all the settings with your hands, there are ready-made presets, but you also need to figure them out.
Questions:
1) How to understand quickly (for an amateur) these concepts? What is it? Which and when you need / can choose (why are there so many of them)? You need to configure: format (mov, mpg, mp4, etc. In Adobe, saved in mkv), video codec (in the list of dozens 3-4), audio codec.
The forums are usually general phrases, and in books the emphasis is on processing and it is understood that the reader is familiar with the formats / codecs. Or I'm out of luck finding a good tutorial.
2) As I understand it, in programs like shortcut codecs and other gizmos are also free. What will be guaranteed to work (play 1080p/50 video + sound) on TV (from a flash drive on LG, Samsung and others)?

Answer 1

You need to configure: format (mov, mpg, mp4, etc. In Adobe, saved in mkv), video codec (in the list of dozens 3-4), audio codec.

Here are my top codecs for amateur use:
1) H.264 (mp4 container) - most of the video on the Internet is still distributed in it. Moderately light, looks acceptable. Solid middle man. Bitrate for FHD 1080p50 - 15-25 Mbps.
2) VP9 (webm, mp4 container) - forced by Google as a replacement for H265 (see below), and quite successfully. Already supported by many hardware, the settings are about the same as for H265, but most of the professional software does not support it. But it supports ffmpeg - in general, a dream codec for an open source lover. Until now, it does not seem to be considered on the video card, but this is not accurate.
3) H.265 (mp4 container) - designed as a replacement for H264, mainly for high resolutions (4K and higher), but it also copes well with regular FHD. It compresses better, the quality is better than with H264. For your FHD bitrate in the region of 10-14 Mbps. It works very slowly, eats a lot of resources both for creating a file and for playback.
Honorable Mention: QuickTime (mov container) is an Apple standard. Not for poppies to use it makes no sense. I won’t tell you about bitrates, because I don’t remember - but I myself am sitting on Windows. Playback support is similar to H264.
The rest, in short, you do not need. Either outdated, or do not have special advantages over those mentioned above, or professional.
The audio codec is usually AAC or Opus. Bitrate 128 kbps or higher.

What will be guaranteed to work (play 1080p/50 video + sound) on TV (from a flash drive on LG, Samsung and others)?

H.264 even works on coffee makers, so you can safely choose it.

As I understand it, in shortcut programs, codecs and other gizmos are also free.

All codecs available to you are free for you, but some of them are paid for by hardware and / or software manufacturers.

Answer 2

1. Quickly go and read ffmpeg.org
Often it's even easier to google something like: ffmpeg mov to mp4
2. No. No one can guarantee reproduction