VC-1(WMV) > AVC(H.264) Best render settings for YouTube

[Lowlypawn]

I've been lurking for some time, done a lot of experimenting with different render setting and what's the best for youtube. When I search the web for this subject I find very little good info, or it's very old and outdated.

Second point I want to point out is the difference from the AVC(H.264) codec VS WMV (VC-1). Specifically how the AVC codec crushes the blacks. I do like the look of the AVC except when it turns the dark areas ALL BLACK or into black blocky mush with strange colors! The WMV is much closer to what the video preview looks like in Vegas. I also want to post my render setting and see how it compares to other Vegas users, maybe get a few tips. Last, I get a lot of youtube requests on my render setting so I can hopefully direct them to this post and save a lot of typing.



I have found two settings that look good (except the dark areas) and youtube accepts with good results.

Sony AVC


WMV (VC-1) The WMV setting is nice because you can specify Two pass and Key frames.


Some side by side example to show the difference and how the AVC version (quictime player on the left) turns the dark areas all black or to mush!


Notice how all detail in the dark areas are lost on the left (AVC)



I think the asphalt just puked



Look at the yellow stripe!


But on the other hand I like the look of the darker blacks in the AVC version for the brighter shots, I just wish I could have the best of both worlds.

To see how they look uploaded on Youtube and Vimeo.

WMV on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO4Z7JuEnUg

AVC (H.264) on Vimeo
http://www.vimeo.com/10436972

I really think the WMV codec is under rated. It does a much better job of preserving the detail in the dark areas then the AVC. Maybe it's Sony's AVC encoder? And not the AVC(H.264) codec itself? Maybe a different AVC(H.264) encoder wold preserve the dark areas better? that's what I am hoping to find out in this post. Thought, comments and any render advice welcome.

 

[Lowlypawn]

Here are another set of videos to compare VC-1 VS AVC.

Both were rendered at 10MBPS.

VC-1 on YouTube --- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLbwKGKT6PU
AVC on Vimeo --- http://www.vimeo.com/12611600

Again the AVC version the blacks are substantially darker. Much darker then the preview window in Sony Vegas.

File sizes are about the same.
VC-1 277,021
AVC 263,774

The VC-1 takes longer to render but that is mostly because it's using 2 passes.

 

[Lowlypawn]

Another comparison:

Apex, Nevada - Panoramic
Youtube WMV (VC-1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCtXENjzUK0
Vimeo Sony AVE (H.264) http://www.vimeo.com/13871645

I got to admit I like the H.264 much better this time. I made the video bright enough that I didn't notice any mud in the dark areas and the darker blacks almost always look better.

Also note YouTube looks more blurry then Vimeo but that all Youtube, The original WMV version looks perfectly clear. I think their encoders are more aggressive then Vimeos.

 

[PerroneFord]

Ok,

1. VC-1 /= WMV.

2. Vegas does not encode VC-1, so please don't put that confusing stuff out there.

3. 10Mbps is WAY to high for these encodes. At least for going to the web. 5Mbps should be MORE than sufficient to do what you need it to do.

4. Sony AVC and Windows Media Encoder are not expecting to receive the same level of signal. Hence why one is "crushing" your blacks and the other is not. You need to learn about what these codecs want, and you'll begin to have better results.

5. Going to 100% charpness on the WMV codec encode is terrific for talking heads, but will cost you on fast moving material.

6. Video based audio should be at 48kHz not 44. Might want to change your settings.

7. Vimeo and Youtube do so much compression on the videos, I don't even bother showing them as anything but a proxy. Comparing the footage between then is a crap shoot on the best of days.

 

[Lowlypawn]

Ok,

1. VC-1 /= WMV.

2. Vegas does not encode VC-1, so please don't put that confusing stuff out there.

WMV 9 = VC-1, http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/codecs/video.aspx
"Windows Media Video 9 is the Microsoft implementation of the VC-1 SMPTE standard."

3. 10Mbps is WAY to high for these encodes. At least for going to the web. 5Mbps should be MORE than sufficient to do what you need it to do.

Why is it too high? Isn't is best to give YouTube and Vimeo the most information possible? HD DVD is 28, Blu-ray is 36 to 48 MBPS. I have read depending on the source the recommended MBPS are 4-10 mbps, so I figured I would take the high side to be safe. HD space is not a problem and uploading my video rarely takes more then 20-30 minutes. I will agree that most user will be hard pressed to tell a difference between 5 or 10 mbps depending on the complexity, but again why skimp if you don't have to?

4. Sony AVC and Windows Media Encoder are not expecting to receive the same level of signal. Hence why one is "crushing" your blacks and the other is not. You need to learn about what these codecs want, and you'll begin to have better results.

That's what I am doing. I have learned that the AVC H.264 will be a little darker then the preview window in Vegas. WMV is truer to what you see. But as I said before, I like the darker blacks of the H.264, I just got to remember to lighten the video a little extra before rendering.

5. Going to 100% charpness on the WMV codec encode is terrific for talking heads, but will cost you on fast moving material.

That's something I'll have to experiment with.

6. Video based audio should be at 48kHz not 44. Might want to change your settings.

Good catch, I actually meant for that to be a 48 like the AVC H.264 settings. I never noticed a drop in sound quality between the two and I have a decent set of studio monitors connected to my computer but still. No point going 10 MBPS and then skimping on the audio.

7. Vimeo and Youtube do so much compression on the videos, I don't even bother showing them as anything but a proxy. Comparing the footage between then is a crap shoot on the best of days.

That's true but that's what people are going to watch so I think it's still good to note the difference (if any) between the two.

 

[PerroneFord]

WMV 9 = VC-1, http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/codecs/video.aspx
"Windows Media Video 9 is the Microsoft implementation of the VC-1 SMPTE standard."

I am well aware of WMV and VC-1. And I have encoders that will encode real VC-1 file. Windows Media Player (the free player) won't even read a VC-1 file. They are NOT the same.

Why is it too high? Isn't is best to give YouTube and Vimeo the most information possible? HD DVD is 28, Blu-ray is 36 to 48 MBPS. I have read depending on the source the recommended MBPS are 4-10 mbps, so I figured I would take the high side to be safe. HD space is not a problem and uploading my video rarely takes more then 20-30 minutes. I will agree that most user will be hard pressed to tell a difference between 5 or 10 mbps depending on the complexity, but again why skimp if you don't have to?

Logically, you're right. The problem becomes the encoders begin to have a difficult job in throwing more stuff away. And the decisions they need to make in throwing that data away. To see something similar in action, Bring a 1080p file into Vegas that has fine detail and ask Vegas to make a 360x240 file from that source. And watch the quality drop. Bring a 720x480 file with fine detail in it and ask Vegas to make a 360x240 file from it. The detail holds up much better. It takes a GOOD encoder to preserve quality when having to throw away a lot of information. And honestly, the settings at Youtube and Vimeo, are not optimized for this kind of thing.

But you don't have to believe me. Play with it yourself and see. I have. For years.

That's what I am doing. I have learned that the AVC H.264 will be a little darker then the preview window in Vegas. WMV is truer to what you see. But as I said before, I like the darker blacks of the H.264, I just got to remember to lighten the video a little extra before rendering.

My AVC encodes are exactly the same. They are not darker. And my WMV encodes are spot on as well. So you might want to try to figure out what you are doing wrong, and maybe listen to what I tried to tell you.

Or not.

 

[Lowlypawn]

It's been awhile since I have updated this post but I wanted to do some more testing before I did.

I am well aware of WMV and VC-1. And I have encoders that will encode real VC-1 file. Windows Media Player (the free player) won't even read a VC-1 file. They are NOT the same.

I can find NO evidence supporting your statement... I still can't understand even after I gave you a link to Microsoft how you can profess that WMV is not a "real" version of VC-1?! Another link from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VC-1 and if you look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WMV it states "The Simple and Main profile levels in WMV 9 are compliant with the same profile levels in the VC-1 specification.[12] The Advanced Profile in VC-1 is implemented in a new WMV codec called Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile."

Here is another link called the "WMV9/VC-1 FAQ"! http://alexzambelli.com/blog/wmv9-vc1-faq/ "Q: What is VC-1? What is WMV9? What’s the difference?
A: VC-1 is a codec specification as standardized by SMPTE in 421M. WMV9 is an implementation of that specification. Think of it this way: WMV9 is to VC-1 what x264 is to MPEG-4 AVC or DivX is to MPEG-4 ASP. In the context of Microsoft video codecs, WMV9 and VC-1 can be considered one and the same. A fine line can be drawn by saying that WMV9 is VC-1 video in the context of Windows Media: inside an ASF container, or with WMA audio, or with WM DRM, or streaming from WM Servers, etc."

It's not like this matters, I just found it interesting trying to learn about the different codecs.

Logically, you're right. The problem becomes the encoders begin to have a difficult job in throwing more stuff away. And the decisions they need to make in throwing that data away. To see something similar in action, Bring a 1080p file into Vegas that has fine detail and ask Vegas to make a 360x240 file from that source. And watch the quality drop. Bring a 720x480 file with fine detail in it and ask Vegas to make a 360x240 file from it. The detail holds up much better. It takes a GOOD encoder to preserve quality when having to throw away a lot of information. And honestly, the settings at Youtube and Vimeo, are not optimized for this kind of thing.

But you don't have to believe me. Play with it yourself and see. I have. For years.

I did some more testing using various bit rates and YouTube and I was going to tell you you were wrong but I kind of have to agree now.

I have a 720P video that at 8 Kbps ended up being 238megs. But when I used the render setting, two pass VBS 5-14Kbps the final video was only 150 megs. And I couldn't see a difference on my computer. The 150 meg video also looked great on youtube. So it seems the extra 70 megs weren't doing much. I think that's the way to go from now on, let the computer figure out the optimum bit rate with VBS.

My AVC encodes are exactly the same. They are not darker. And my WMV encodes are spot on as well. So you might want to try to figure out what you are doing wrong, and maybe listen to what I tried to tell you.

Or not.

"try to figure out what I'm doing wrong", that's laughable and arrogant.... See the screen shots, WMV and AVC (H.264) have slightly different looks. It's simply the way the different codecs handle an image. I understand that now. I also have come to prefer the "look" of H.264. It simply has a puncher look, but, if you go too dark it can lead to some ugly blocking. No problem, I now know to not go overly dark when color correcting.

It's easy to see the difference on this side by side comparison. Same video rendered in different formats. WMV is left and H.264 is right.

But who cares, my point is not to start some pissing contest.

Anyway I plan to post up my new "favorite" render setting soon for Youtube. Just need to get my screen shots in order and do a little more testing. Currently I am playing around with the Resample option.

Basically you can use.
Smart resample
Force resample
and Disable resample.

Some clips shot a 60 FPS you can see the double image (interlaced) when paused. But you can't see the double image when playing the video, the motion hides it. So at first I though the disable resample looked superior, much crisper but then I noticed the sky looked much worse (ugly blocking). So other then looking better when paused I think leaving it at Smart resample yields the best over all results.

If anyone can lend some light on when and why to use this settings that would be cool. Also For those who are interested here are some video showing the difference.

Original version with the default setting "Smart resample" selected.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRDkiJG9wgA

Same video resample disabled.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClaIzmR0P2Q
At 1:45 you will see a huge difference from the original (looks much clearer). But later on I think the original version looks better. The sky looks less blocky and the overall look is smoother. I just found it interesting and something to play around with for my next video.



Another subject to touch on is audio settings.
Vimeo recommends 320 KBPS / 44.1 KHZ. http://vimeo.com/help/compression
I was using 128/48 which sounded fine. I tired some different settings but the difference was imperceptible.

FYI: The GH1 records audio at 192/48 and the GoPro HD uses 128/48 so I can't see much benefit going above 192/48. But I suppose the 320/44.1 is because that is what a lot of high quality MP3 are.

Maybe someday I'll put together a bunch of clips, some with motion, some static, low light, and lots of detail, ECT, then render 10+ different version starting at 3 Mbps all the way up to 15 Mbps VS VBS. Throw them all on Youtube and see what looks the best. But that sounds like a lot of work

 

[JeganRX]

Someone needs to visit the compression board...

Personally, while VC-1 is great and all, it's hardly used on anything but Blu-ray discs, so I wouldn't even bother encoding in it. If you encode a single, high-bitrate, high profile H.264 file, you've got a very good "master" for many consumer formats. At least two anyway: Blu-ray and Web (since most websites re-encode). I suspect you're falling victim to the usual Quicktime H.264 gamma bug that displays incorrectly. Unless Vegas (for whatever reason) encodes with another color profile, the video SHOULD look identical to your edit source, if viewed in a player other than Quicktime. Regardless though, if you uploaded that video to Youtube, it SHOULD resemble your original colors anyway, as Youtube doesn't follow that Quicktime bug either. There is arrogance going on both ends of this thread, but more specifically, it's misunderstanding. Please, try playing back the file in VLC, Media Player Classic, or even Windows Media Player if you have proper codec support (should be automatic in Windows 7). If Vegas does indeed flag the file for incorrect levels, I'd suggest encoding through x264.

The difference in resampling 48khz to 44.1 is probably neglible (especially for web), but what's even more negligible is the file size savings you'd make from doing the conversion.

About your difference in your clips: I have a feeling that during the particular shot in 1:45, the smart resample version is blending the sky frames, thus averaging out the gradient in the sky, reducing noise, and making it easier to compress in the end. The disabled version likely forces the codec to deal with the stuttering frame, and more defined sky gradient, thus it posterizes a bit more in the final Youtube version. Overall, I'd stick with the disabled version though, as I hate frame-blends.

On the above debate over the existence of VC-1 as a WMV9 codec: Yes, it is the advanced version of WMV9, but as I mentioned above, it is almost never used outside Blu-ray discs, so the distinction is often made. The formats are compatible, though I believe additional profile support is necessary in software players. I myself find WMV9 alone to be an inefficient codec during encoding, so I can't say I'd expect VC-1 to encode any faster. H.264 (x264 to be exact) always seems much faster to me, for a higher quality encode.

 

[PerroneFord]

Just a couple of thoughts....

1. AVCHD is a codified and standardized subset of H.264. This does not mean that AVCHD and H.264 are the same. Even though they use the same underlying compression scheme. But whatever, I'm not interested in an argument.

2. Requesting someone to try and figure out what they are doing wrong may seem arrogant. But a quick check should show you that your problem has zero to do with codec, and everything to do with how Vegas handles gamma, and how it's encoders for WMV and H264 expect different luma levels. Neither is more "punchy" or "contrasty" than the other. There is simply a matter of getting levels correct. If you want a direct test of this, open the waveform monitor, and drop NTSC color bars on the timeline. Encode to h264 and then encode to WMV. Bring those encoded versions back into Vegas and observe the results on the waveform monitor. And you'll have your answer as to why the results seem different.

3. Audio CDs are mastered at 44.1KHz and have been since Red Book was codified. Video, due to sync rates has always run at 48KHz. This is why syncronized audio is done at the 48KHz rate and not the audio only rate of 44.1Khz. Go have a look at any audio for video recorder produced in the past 20 years (or any camcorder), and you'll see it runs at 48KHz or multiples of that.



Best of luck to those working their way through this. On the surface, this should be simple, but there are a number of factors involved, most stemming from how Vegas handles levels. Glenn Chan's excellent site goes over much of this, and should be required reading for anyone editing in Vegas and trying to get their levels right.