Youtube Compression settings

Does anyone at YouTube actually have a clue?

Why do they ask for 320x240 if they're going to present it as 455x342? (But tell you to embed it as 425x350...Why let the browser play with it?)

Are they purposely screwing with the quality?
 
That being said, I uploaded a FLV file at 320x240 / 768kbs / 64kbs audio, stereo, 22.1 kHz and the quality didn't suffer too much.
 
I use Sorenson Squeeze.

Not cheap, but I think it's worth the price. (Never compared it to any others, though, so take that for what it's worth.)
 
OK sorry to drag up an old thread but....

CAN ANYONE sort this whole YouTube thing out, please? I have to upload a music video ASAP and really want it to look as good as possible.

Does anyone know if YouTube does or doesn't recompress FLV uploads?
(My test, read above, showed in my case it does)

Does anyone know if YouTube has moved over to H.264 yet?

Does anyone have some tips for getting really sharp vids on YouTube?

Does anyone know ANYTHING, please!?
 
YouTube does recompress FLVs. I just did a 320x240 / 768 kbs / 64 that went from 9 MB to 4 MB once it was uploaded. Better than the WMV did.

Doesn't look bad, though.

I think the problem with WMVs is the artifacting inherent in the format, so it will depend a lot on what is in the video, to begin with.
 
OK, I carefully read the Ken Stone article http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage...ssor_gary.html and some of the stuff he said makes a lot of sense, in particular compressing in the Photo-JPEG format, because it doesn't have any inter or intra frame compression, and since this is introduced by YouTube's FLV compression you can avoid having it done twice.

I compressed a whole bunch of Quicktime mov's with Photo-JPEG at various sizes (640x360, 540x303, 425x239) and quality levels, and was going to upload them all to really see which worked best, but in the end..... it took so damn long just to upload the first one, which was 93mb (the largest) and the band the video was for, and myself, have been so drained by the video experience (a whole other story) that we just said "f*ck it" and used it without trying any of the others.

The quality is surprisingly good, definitely the best results I've ever experienced uploading to YouTube. The initial file was 425x239, High Quality and a really nice, sharp picture - didn't look compressed at all. So the YouTube recompression wasn't too severe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKU1jtm81rw

The trial and error method is great in theory, but only good in practice for those with a fast internet connection. And the connection where I live is appallingly slow - apparently 'broadband' in Australia is not really 'broadband' by most other countries' standards.

LASTLY a very important word on de-interlacing: I had the misfortune of shooting the video with a Sony PD-170 (initially we were supposed to be using a HVX200 but again, that's whole other story) which only has one of those fake progressive modes and it can't even be used in conjunction with 16x9 (why Sony??). All the de-interlacing I'd seen before was rubbish: coming out either really pixellated or with that frame-blended look. BUT in Ken Stone's article he recommends using the de-interlace feature in Compressor - select 'Better (Motion Adaptive)' and turn 'Adaptive Details' OFF! Stone claims that doing this causes "the encoder to harness the same algorithms that the application DVD Player uses to deinterlace video on the fly during playback."

I tried it and I have to say the results were spectacular. You wouldn't know it was interlaced in the first place.

EDIT: Sorry, I should have pointed out that Compressor, and Ken Stone's article, are specific to Macs.
 
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I just found this youtube thread since I am thinking about putting a video or two up there. I see a lot of various views as to what will result in decent quality. I had a thought tonight ..... why not find a video there that looks really decent and send a message to the person and ask them what they did to get it there and looking good. So I just did that. If I get any useful info, I will post it here.

Larry
 
The reply I got.

I'm creating my videos with Windows Movie Maker and it gives several options when creating the video. Here are the details on the option that I choose, I hope this is what you're looking for....

Bit rate = variable
Display size = 640x480 pixels
Aspect ratio = 4:3
Frames per second = 30

Again, I hope that's what you're looking for.
Click to expand...

The guy has great looking videos on youtube. Figures it would be some simple thing for someone. Well, I'll play around some, post something on youtube and put a link here with what I did to contribute to what else is being said here ....

Larry
 
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