Youtube upload quality - THIS IS DIFFERENT!

[matteusclement]

No, I don't have a technique that's killer, I need the killer technique!

All the sites I have looked at are 2 years old and still think there is a 100mb limit on size.

Correct me if I am wrong, but YT uses flash coding right? (FLV)
So doesn't it make more sense to code it to that than to H.264 mov or some such other format?

I see some videos on YT that just look as good as TV and am tired of having my videos look like garbage.

And yes, I looked through the forums.
Can't find anything.

Post your samples if you can with the settings you use.

 

[blitzkrieg79]

I don't know if you are shooting in HD or not but I have been using guidelines found in this link: http://vimeo.com/forums/topic:3671 They have various methods for various programs but it's all about converting HD (not SD) videos to YouTube.

 

[LTX]

The one HD video I have on Youtube is one that I rendered in After Effects to H.264 MP4 1280x720 (if I recall correctly), and it was available in HD about an hour after uploading. Looks great!

 

[twoodcc]

i just uploaded this today. i used iMovie, and exported it using quicktime. set the size to 720 HD, and i used MPEG-4 compression. that's all i changed. the size of the video to upload was great! about 68 MB. when i used h.264 encoding, the size was over 200 MB.

 

[sven-]

Don't use Flash, although it may seem logical to do so.

First look at the picture below. This is what YouTube itself advises you to do:

Now, what do I use?

- .mov container
- H.264 codec for video (I use x264encoder*, instead of the crappy Apple H.264 encoder)
- AAC codec for audio
- bitrate max. 6400 kilobits p/s (the higher the better quality, and since YouTube now accepts filesizes up to 2GB why don't use it )
- 1280x720 resolution

This works great. You get the HD option with these settings.

* see below for more advanced settings:

 

[twoodcc]

h.264 encoding makes the video size larger than MPEG-4, and yes, the limit is now 2 GB, but it takes forever to upload

 

[matteusclement]

sven -
would you mind posting some links to videos of yours on youtube?
and where do you get that encoder? i have been using both visual hub and hand brake with different setting and suprisingly have gotten some decent results.

and to others:
I find the HD support on youtube to be crap. absolute, complete crap. Choppy, and out of sync audio makes me look like I make **** video. I looked into VIMEO recently and am thinking about trying that out to get real HD. The reviews have been great. anyone use VIMEO?

here was a video I made, burned to a DVD image, then ripped out with hand brake and still got good video for APPLE TV setting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hthbTm4iEkM&fmt=18

but can it be better?

 

[twoodcc]

that video you posted was nice, and i believe the only way to make it better is to film with a better camera, and preferably an HD one. here is a video i just uploaded tonight. again, i used the same settings. as you can see, the lighting in the video isn't that great, partly due to the encoding process. this came from a 1080P camera, but when i imported into imovie, it "optimized" it to a smaller size. next time i'm going to keep it at original size, and see if there's a difference. oh, and this again was the MPEG-4 container, so it was only about 58 MB

 

[matteusclement]

i do shoot HD.
But youtube is terrible for HD.
Also, not all people can view HD on their comps, so I do HQ instead.
I should find out about gamma levels for YT so the contrast doesn't look like crap.

 

[twoodcc]

what do you edit your videos with?

 

[yoak]

I have had much better luck with HD on Vimeo than on Youtube, but that might change with the new Share option in FC, where you can output directly for Youtube from the timeline.
It´s not important to me too reach a big audience, it´s more important that the ones I want to show the film to can see good quality.
Here is a clip I did to check out. It´s shot on EX-3 cameras and HVX200
http://vimeo.com/4183140

It´s not perfect if you go full screen though

 

[twoodcc]

i do shoot HD.
But youtube is terrible for HD.
Also, not all people can view HD on their comps, so I do HQ instead.
I should find out about gamma levels for YT so the contrast doesn't look like crap.

take at look at this video. granted, youtube HD isn't perfect, but i think this video shows that if you capture in good lighting from a HD camera, you can get pretty good results. tell if you think that video looks better in HD than the other videos i posted, or your SD video.

 

[acearchie]

Quite a few of my videos are what I would call consumer HD... I don't think they look like garbage. I exported as 720p in h.264 and I think they look pretty good!

 

[twoodcc]

Quite a few of my videos are what I would call consumer HD... I don't think they look like garbage. I exported as 720p in h.264 and I think they look pretty good!

i agree. granted, i have to have good lighting to really get a good effect, but still, i think my HD is much better than SD any day

 

[matteusclement]

Yoak

YOAK,
I totally agree. I am thinking about VIMEO too.
I don't think that no matter how you encode, youtube's servers are always going to re-compress it. The only way I see YT getting better is if they actually give the exact codec and allow for a "DIRECT UPLOAD". I believe that is what VIMEO is doing!

I have to have the same thing, HQ or HD for my clients.
$60 a year is not that bad for a great and easy video server.