YouTube Now (unofficially) Supports 1080P

basspig

Veteran
I did the test this evening and uploaded a clip at 1080P.

To view in the new 1080P format, it is necessary to add "&fmt=37" to the end of the clip's URL.

I have added that suffix in this link, so all you need to do is click on it and it will play at 1080P. I verified this by inspecting the temporary FLV file that downloaded in my temp folder: it is 1920x1080.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5lvB5zYOK4&fmt=37


Air show test clip, PMW-EX1, shot last year. YouTube compression still degrades it a bit, but it looks better than previous YouTube HD videos.

This puts YouTube in front once again for PMW users who want to strut their stuff on the internet.

Upload h.264 rendered at 1920x1080, at least 4mb/s, according to YouTube insiders, but I rendered mine at 14mb/s just to be sure. And add &fmt=37 to the end of the url to get 1080P.
 
Further, in full screen view you can choose between 720p and 1080p by pointing your mouse to the HD symbol on the lower right corner.

Deti
 
I don't understand why a lot of people here don't like to use YouTube... is it only because it "looks" not as "professional" as Vimeo or ExposureRoom?
 
I was unaware of it, until I stumbled into a discussion of it while Googling on the methods that Facebook uses to detect copyrighted works on their video uploads. I stumbled into a YouTube blog and read about adding "&FMT=37" to the end of a URL of a video that was uploaded as 1080P.

I've found some movie trailers in 1080P, and the offical ones DO have a "720 - 1080" popout when hovering over the HD button, but mine doesn't give that choice. It just has the HD button. Apparently if the original was 1080, then clicking HD will give you 1080, not 720, based on my further testing and checking of the temp FLV files that resulted.

YouTube is okay, but most folks don't like the ten minute limit. Why have a 1GB upload limit, when 10 minutes of video barely breaks 200MB? The other thing is they play copyright police with their automatic fingerprinting of audio. They stripped audio out of our Christmas tree decorating video last night because a Christmas DVD was playing on the TV in the room and the video camera picked up some of that audio in the background.

All that aside, YouTube gets more traffic than the other sites. I still have videos on the other sites over a year old and only a dozen views. My YouTube videos score in the hundreds of views after a year. Before Google bought them, I could put a video up at 1am and by 1:20 am, it would have 590 views on it already. But by Jan 2007, suddenly it would take an hour to get ONE view of any new video. YouTube changed suddenly after Dec 2006.

But the 1080P is pretty slick, though it looks a bit worse than satellite TV as seen in Costco. Pixellated macroblock h*ll, if you ask me, when anything is in motion. Just look at how shitty my aviation clip looks. The fine detail is softened and ragged around the edges. It's debatable whether it's that much better than 720P YouTube videos.
 
I don't understand why a lot of people here don't like to use YouTube... is it only because it "looks" not as "professional" as Vimeo or ExposureRoom?
I agree. Because i have had numerous clients that have asked specifically if i can make a video for them to be put on youtube. Youtube can be an asset to video production companies. THere have been rumours of people having their accounts removed and the risk involved with that. It is also possible that when the video is finished playing you can select to not show other peoples videos or you can show other videos from your profile
 
let me get this straight. you can only view a 1080P clip/video as a link/URL? so, if i were to upload a 1080P video to YT, I would only be able to view it in 1080P as a link emailed to whomever. i wouldn't be able to see it in 1080P directly from YT? am i wrong?
 
Nice looking footage! The only problem is that I'm finding 1080p flash video playback sluggish on both my machines (2.1gHz 4g/ram macbook and 2.4/quadcore 4g/ram windows xp). In fact, the 720p videos stutter quite a bit too. Doesn't do this on Vimeo with their 720p material.


I don't understand why a lot of people here don't like to use YouTube... is it only because it "looks" not as "professional" as Vimeo or ExposureRoom?

That is one reason. Another is the terribly childish mentality of the majority of the community. If a client wants a Youtube video that is one thing, but personally I would rather have my films and demos played on Vimeo or ER.

And I know you can disable comments and the like, but then, doesn't that take away the greatest "advantage" youtube has; the expansive user base?
 
YouTube is okay, but most folks don't like the ten minute limit. Why have a 1GB upload limit, when 10 minutes of video barely breaks 200MB? The other thing is they play copyright police with their automatic fingerprinting of audio. They stripped audio out of our Christmas tree decorating video last night because a Christmas DVD was playing on the TV in the room and the video camera picked up some of that audio in the background...

...But the 1080P is pretty slick, though it looks a bit worse than satellite TV as seen in Costco. Pixellated macroblock h*ll, if you ask me, when anything is in motion. Just look at how shi*ty my aviation clip looks. The fine detail is softened and ragged around the edges. It's debatable whether it's that much better than 720P YouTube videos.

Your ten minute videos are barely 200MB? Basspig, you should be setting your bitrates higher! Take advantage of that 2GB allowance because the less you send to YouTube, the worse their RECOMPRESSION looks! This could be why you are getting macroblock hell.

My ten-minute 7000kbps H.264 uploads are typically over 500MB. I'm really considering going 14000kbps now that I have a faster internet upload connection.

Also I'm less than thrilled with the performance playback of 720p videos. I can't imagine 1080p ones will play better. I'm running a Quadcore 2.4gHz machine, 3GB RAM so hardware shouldn't be the issue. It's gotta be something on YouTube's end.
 
Well, my rig is similar and they playback just fine. Maybe it has something to do with your flashplayer?

Although I do remember that in the past (months ago...) I had to wait for the videos to finish loading before playing them, otherwise they used to get stuttery even when the progress bar was far ahead.
 
I'm running 3.5GHz quad core and Win XP here and have never run into any problems playing YT videos, not even the 1080P clips. I have a number of friends running core2 duo chips that complain that my Vimeo videos stutter on their machines though.


If you e-mail a video clip from YouTube, typically the recipient gets the standard low-def version. They would have to click the HD button to view it with acceptable quality.

Thanks Jay. I shot that at Westover ARB in Chicopee, MA last year.
 
I don't understand why a lot of people here don't like to use YouTube... is it only because it "looks" not as "professional" as Vimeo or ExposureRoom?

My main issue is music rights and that all videos i do has to be explained to Youtube that I have tre rights fot the production... Youtube just leaves you with a muted video. Also youtube HD has in my eyes a lower quality than vimeo and defenitly lower than exposureroom.. not to even go in on sound quality ;) Youtube is more fun though since it´s more avaible to the average user.. almost no knowlage of codecs and encoding is required
 
My ten-minute 7000kbps H.264 uploads are typically over 500MB. I'm really considering going 14000kbps now that I have a faster internet upload connection.


I typically send up 10,000kbps H.264 videos, and I am satisfied with what I see.

I also have no problem playing any videos. I run DSL and my machine is 8Core 3Ghz w 9 gigs of ram. Though some people at my work can't play youtube smoothly, even though they have a good DSL connection. On guy with a Mac G4 can't play anything. So I guess it's partially the machine you're using. I am surprised. I guess that's why there is a choice between SD, HQ and HD.
 
I also have a good DSL, for download speeds anyway, and get choppy 720 YT all the time. Windows 3.2GHz quad with 4GB and an older Windows laptop.
 
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