crashdummy35

So I'm trying to get some videos uploaded to You Tube and it's been ages since I've done this.

Looking at the new upload guidelines, I see they are accepting .flv files again which is total win because of the small file sizes and excellent quality you can achieve; they are also accepting MPEG-2 which is what my HandyCam shoots natively.

But, I'm having a bit of trouble getting my files to hold their quality.

In reading through the guidelines, I see You Tube is asking for the original aspect ratio and rate to be maintained and they'll take over the rest during conversion. Problem is my cam shoots at .999 or 1.2121; converting the aspect to square 1.0 immediately causes me to lose half of my quality, factoring in the reconversion by You Tube, I end up with trash.

If you look at this guys .flv upload it's superb. Better than most HD uploads. Problem is, he isn't sharing his settings 0.o

Anyone have any ideas how I can achieve this kind of quality using the tools I have? I own Sony Vegas Pro 9 (an upgrade) and an older version of Camtasia Studio that renders to .flv. Problem is, this version of CS doesn't handle MPEG-2 video. And I don't have the money to upgrade even if the newer ones do--it's like 180 bucks for the upgrades.

Any ideas would be welcome here.

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Gigabyte UD3P/UD3R Owner's Thread

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neurolysis

I personally use xvid avi, and have never had a problem with it.

If money is an issue, you can use VirtualDub

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crashdummy35

What res are you uploading at? The highest I'm wanting to go is maybe 960 x 540 widescreen.

Is Xvid avi a program?

Does Virtual Dub render to .flv file?

Thanks for the tips by the way

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Gigabyte UD3P/UD3R Owner's Thread

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neurolysis

I usually upload at 1280 x 720 (720p). Xvid is a compression algorithm, and Virtualdub will only export to avi (but Xvid will compress good quality videos well without losing much quality).

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crashdummy35

Okay. I guess I'm off to study Xvid. I wish Vegas could render to .mov .... would save me a ton of trouble here.

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Gigabyte UD3P/UD3R Owner's Thread

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neurolysis

I believe the reason it won't render to mov is because of Apple's patents.

You'll get some generation loss, but if you want, you could export to AVI and convert it.

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low strife

.flv is a container for flash video. It's a fairly good codec, good for streaming (hence why it's used on pretty much all streaming sites).

xvid\dvix are the same thing, except xvid is the open source version. .avi is the container they usually fit into, though I believe they can be muxed into others (mp4 maybe). Youtube says they perfer H.264 or MPEG-2 codecs in various containers.

I'd recommend importing your camera video straight into Vegas, then rendering it out as .avi (lossless). Then I'd follow the guide that Coma will post in here in a few hours.

Coma

- Today, YouTube re-encodes every upload with no exception. That upload seems to be one of those from back when you could modify the duration reported in the FLV headers to make YouTube allow you a higher bitrate.
- Had that video been uploaded normally, converted by YouTube in HQ, it would've looked better. HD videos uploaded at a high quality look much better. Garbage in, garbage out. YouTube videos look crap if your source video is crap. Here's an example of what you can get if you upload high quality video:

- Does your cam really shoot at that aspect ratio? Maybe you mean pixel aspect ratio? It's best to leave that alone if you aren't a video fanatic. I've no idea where you got the idea you lose 'half of your quality' by resizing. When you say quality, maybe you mean resolution?

How to get a high quality: Deinterlace your video. Try to use the slower, more advanced options like motion-compensated deinterlacing. Avoid any kind of blending at all costs. Don't change the frame rate. Don't change the resolution. Don't change the aspect ratio. Don't add black bars. Use 15Mbps or more for the bitrate -- you're uploading to YouTube, a giant file is okay.

It wouldn't. It would cause you even more trouble, since you seem to want quality...

Apple's implementation of the SVQ format (some .mov files):

(the encoder used all its allocated bits on the static shots, and left none for motion -- this is what it looks like when there's any motion)

The open source, libavcodec, implementation of the same format:


When it comes to video compression, Apple has not even the slightest hint. Any flavor of .mov being high quality is a myth.

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crashdummy35

Yeah I always import my DVD discs straight into Vegas for editing/effects work and whatnot. (My cam shoots mini DVDs, and they are of excellent quality for such a plain little cam) I don't really understand containers and all that. I used pre-sets from a guy called guerillabill on You Tube for all my software and it worked great until You Tube changed the upload requirements...now nothing works.

So it's MPEG-2 to lossless .avi and follow the guide here in a while. Okay, I'll try that.

Uploading to You Tube is just such a pain in the A that if I do it, I'd rather get the best quality I can and do a thorough video, then leave it there for a while you know what I mean? I'm trying to make some videos to help show the basics to potential gpu volt modders and really need to be able to show detail on the pcb as much as possible.

Thanks for the tips guys. Believe me, they are very much appreciated.

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Gigabyte UD3P/UD3R Owner's Thread

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Coma

There really is no relevance to the actual format you upload to YouTube, as long as it's not something extremely proprietary that it can't convert. Basically, everything ffmpeg can handle, YouTube can handle. The only thing that matters is the quality. Or in your case, preserving what you already have. Just do your thing, then export at some gigantic bitrate. The encoder/codec really doesn't matter, just use some ginormous bitrate. 15Mbps or higher.

Doing it right only matters when other people are going to be downloading it directly (get the same quality for less size), or if you're trying to conserve bandwidth of time. But if you have an OK upload speed and a sane bandwidth limit, you really shouldn't care.

If you want to do it right (not recommended, just do it the easy mode way): you can deinterlace it in Vegas and export it to a Lagarith AVI (google Lagarith), then use this to convert to mp4, and upload that. I can't be bothered explaining everything so just search around. I've probably said everything you need to know already, just search for the pieces. They're all in this sub forum.

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