YouTube; Best Compression tips

[Renat Zarbailov]

Hi everyone.
I was wondering if anyone figured out the best approach to video compression for YouTube. I use Sorenson Squeeze 4.3 with 320X240 MPEG4 Sorenson AVC Pro 2-pass VBR with 1000kbps video and 192kbps audio at 29.97 fps, and the video quality sucks on youtube making the audio sound somewhat metallic. Here is an example...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R3U9oeYdgY

Any input is appreciated

Thanks

[Zack Wilson]

With YouTube and other similar websites (ie. Google Video, etc) I've found the more resolution you give it the better. That's probably the main reason why your video is coming out mediocre, you should try to bump up the resolution to 640x480.

With the audio, I've found the most amount of success with sticking with MP3 audio if you can - the websites seem to convert that a bit better, but I've still had success with the AAC audio codec as well at times.

The best success I've had with the video is actually using DIVX 640x480 with one of the standard "Home Theater" modes with the 128 kbps stereo MP3 audio. There is free version of Dr. Divx that can be found at http://labs.divx.com/DrDivX that I've used to encode the videos in the past with great success.

Sometimes YouTube and other hosting Flash video sites seem to handle AVC well, and some don't. It's a bit more picky I guess. I know I've had problems with Sorenson AVC's always working well on those sites, but those were in more previous versions - I think around 4.1, so you should be alright in that regard. (and Sorenson's AVC encoding is still the best in my opinion).

Here is what Google Video Recommends in their Help page :
"Quality Recommendations:

If possible, we suggest uploading the original source file. However, we recommend the specifications below for maximum quality and reasonable file size:

- MPEG4 (mp3 or mp4 audio) at 2 mbps
- MPEG2 (mp3 or mp4 audio) at 5 mbps
- 30 frames per second
- 640x480 resolution
- 4:3 frame
- de-interlace"

And if you're still not happy with the results after all of this, maybe switch to another video hosting company? I think that Revver.com's encoding looks a lot better than YouTube's personally, and the fact that they pay you half of the ad revenue isn't too shabby either. And of course Google Video lets people download the high quality MP4 or GVC (which is really just DIVX4) of your video and has video smoothing on the Flash version.

Hope this helps.
- Zack

[Renat Zarbailov]

Thanks a lot Zack I will look into the DIVX approach.
All the best in the New Year!

[Barry Gribble]

Renat,

I thought your video and audio quality were fine there. Certainly head and shoulders above what you usually see, but that has a lot to do with the source material.

I would look at some of the CBS clips - Craig Furgeson has a lot up there - as the benchmark for quality. I'm certain they are getting as much out of the pipes as they can.

[Alessandro Machi]

Originally Posted by Barry Gribble

Renat,

I thought your video and audio quality were fine there. Certainly head and shoulders above what you usually see, but that has a lot to do with the source material.

I would look at some of the CBS clips - Craig Furgeson has a lot up there - as the benchmark for quality. I'm certain they are getting as much out of the pipes as they can.

Do you think UTube treats everyone the same, I'm just wondering.

[Barry Gribble]

Yeah, interesting question. It is entirely possible that YouTube is allowing them more bandwidth than they allow other clips... or that they are even hosting from a different server. What I'm sure of, though, is that nothing is going to look or sound better than those CBS clips...

[Steven Gotz]

It might not be just the bandwidth. They might be allowing them to encode the video themselves. That would help.

[Alessandro Machi]

Originally Posted by Steven Gotz

It might not be just the bandwidth. They might be allowing them to encode the video themselves. That would help.

This is what I consider to be the holy grail. If I have a nice quality mini-dv, couldn't I do my own encoding and then submit it?

If not for U-Tube, what other online sources like U-Tube are out there that would allow one to do their own encoding first?

[Steven Gotz]

I know that using other people's bandwidth for free is a great idea, but I sure am happy I can afford $7 or so per month to have my own domain and web site. I can put up as good a quality as I want.

When I want to send out really large files, I use YouSendIt.com for $4.95 per month. It really helps with files almost 1GB in size. And with HDV, that can easily happen.

My guess is that someone will figure out how to properly encode what we give them and they will have an advantage over everyone - for a while at least.

[Renat Zarbailov]

Originally Posted by Alessandro Machi

This is what I consider to be the holy grail. If I have a nice quality mini-dv, couldn't I do my own encoding and then submit it?

If not for U-Tube, what other online sources like U-Tube are out there that would allow one to do their own encoding first?

Has anyone looked into http://stage6.divx.com ?
This site allows for DIVX encoded videos in unlimited length/size. They have people uploading HDTV videos encoded with Dr. DIVX and when viewed on full screen it's as if your computer monitor is an HDTV plasma screen. Don't miss a chance to check that site out. On the other hand Brightcove.com and Revver.com are two alternatives using which you cam make some cash from your videos. Brightcove uses Flash video format for good quality video, although not too big 480X360 in 4X3 and 480X270 in 16X9 aspect ratio. Brightcove's standalone encoder/uploader, called Publishpod, is a great little tool to import all your uncompressed DV AVI and compress/upload the files automatically. I had files exceeding 3.5GB or longer than 16 minutes in length give me a an upload timed out errors, so I recompressed long DV AVI's using Dr. DIVX (specifying for the resulting DIVX file not to exceed 3.5GB size). So right now I am uploading a 1hour DIVX file using Publishpod hoping that it will not give me an upload time out error.

[Steven Gotz]

The problem I have is now that Premiere Pro will be available on the Mac, I probably need to post Flash version of my videos or tutorials instead of DivX or WM9. I want the Mac folks to be happy, now don't I? If I am going to be teaching them how to use the software.

I believe that DivX is available for the Mac, but I think I will stick with Flash.

[Zack Wilson]

Brightcove is still Flash video (and it encodes it automatically with the free software) or you can encode it yourself with Sorenson, Flash, etc. And you can choose the settings and quality to upload.

Also a note on the DivX's Stage 6 - it's really great to have large, high quality back-up versions or "DVD Quality" versions that are supplimental to your Flash video.

For an example of both, I used it in a recent college production - where the main site is using Brightcove (www.brightcove.com) and I have a link to the DVD Quality version for the episode "The Terrible Young Couple" which takes you to the Stage 6 site. The example is here. http://www.negativezerofilms.com/beyond/

[Alessandro Machi]

Originally Posted by Zack Wilson

Brightcove is still Flash video (and it encodes it automatically with the free software) or you can encode it yourself with Sorenson, Flash, etc. And you can choose the settings and quality to upload.

Also a note on the DivX's Stage 6 - it's really great to have large, high quality back-up versions or "DVD Quality" versions that are supplimental to your Flash video.

For an example of both, I used it in a recent college production - where the main site is using Brightcove (www.brightcove.com) and I have a link to the DVD Quality version for the episode "The Terrible Young Couple" which takes you to the Stage 6 site. The example is here. http://www.negativezerofilms.com/beyond/

I'm getting dropped frames, is that because I have an older 450 mac?

[Mark Williams]

I know cross posting is prohibitied but please forgive me as this might be helpful.

Here a video that I uploaded to youtube and I am satisfied with considering how poor quality youtube generally is . It is about 40mb for 5 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEE7ORJCS9c

I think I could eek out a little more quality if I had to. Setting were as follows in Quicktime Pro.

Compression H264
Quality - high
Key Frame rate - 24
Encoding pass -2
Dimension 320x240
Audio AAC
Sample rate 48,000
Bitrate 128 kbs

Hope this helps.....

[Renat Zarbailov]

Originally Posted by Mark Williams

I know cross posting is prohibitied but please forgive me as this might be helpful.

Here a video that I uploaded to youtube and I am satisfied with considering how poor quality youtube generally is . It is about 40mb for 5 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEE7ORJCS9c

I think I could eek out a little more quality if I had to. Setting were as follows in Quicktime Pro.

Compression H264
Quality - high
Key Frame rate - 24
Encoding pass -2
Dimension 320x240
Audio AAC
Sample rate 48,000
Bitrate 128 kbs

Hope this helps.....

The video quality is superb!!!!! And the video is very soothing and peaceful, very good job! You say you used Quicktime Pro? Your video was shot mostly from a tripod. Can you please you do me a favor? If I sent you an AVI file could you compress it with the above settings and upload it to yousendit.com I would love to see if my video, which was shot handheld, will yield the same results on youtube. If this is a chore, is there a way Quicktime Pro lets you export presets, so I would get the program and import the preset compressing it myself.
Thank you very much!