double post

This looks a fantastic workthrough using the MPEG Streamclip.
However, I shoot mainly in PROGRESSIVE, 25p (PAL). Would I still need to select the "Check Frame Blending and Better downscaling.
Check Deinterlace Video (deactivates Interlaced Scaling and Reinterlace Chroma)"? As my footage is FRAME based, I am thinking perhaps I do not select these? Or perhaps there are OTHER options to consider, when not shooting Interlaced footage?

That is correct, both deinterlacing and chroma reinterlacing refer to interlaced video only; if your original video is progressive, checking it will not make any difference other than possibly increasing processing time.

Frame blending is useful if you a) change your frame rate [for example you go from PAL to NTSC] or b) have time streched portions in your footage (time remap).

Better downscaling is for the picky - better picture but very slow. Here's what the author of Streamclip says:

"If you are scaling the file to a smaller frame size, by checking "Better Downscaling" you can tell MPEG Streamclip to use a wider 2D-FIR scaler, providing even better picture quality. However this wide 2D-FIR scaler is quite slow and the resulting picture (although perfect) may have less sharpness. This option is disabled by default: enable it only if you need a perfectly scaled movie. If you are scaling the file to a larger size, this option has no effect; the standard 2D-FIR scaler already provides the best scaling quality."

It's so complex trying to find the best way for individual material - the rendering and uploading process take so much time when you then find that the crucnhing they do to your files spoils them!

What do you think?

YouTube - Summit Gear! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf80qRGmCfA&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fuser%2FSummitAudioGear&feature=player_profilepage)

I would say the quality here is very good for youtube video. Good job. What did you use to render and at what settings?

Hey Bryan,

Thanks for that. The video is near the youtube 10 minute limit. I used Vegas Pro 8.0 to render this for youtube as follows:

Quicktime using MPEG-4 format
frame size 1290X720
frame rate: 29.970000
Pixel aspect ration 1.000
data rate: unconstrained
keyframe every 30 (frames) - left this checked
quality slider at 75% - it actually could have been higher as I was under a gig and you are allowed up to 2 gigs when uploading.
audio sample rate set to 44.1 uncompressed - 16 bit stereo

Some people will argue here (as they did with me) that your footage is "codec friendly" - there is no camera motion at all and basically the whole video is one long talking head.

Nevertheless, it is just perfect! It also has some good advice for audio processing we can use.

What is the bitrate of the video you uploaded?

Hi Ervin,

Thank you kindly. I set the bitrate to uncompressed!

In the past I tried to set the bit rate to a specific value but in this instance I simply dragged the "quality" slider to a percentage of %75 percent. I am not sure what that really does with the nuts and bolts of the rending process.

Regards,

Damon, minor correction and correct me if I am wrong, but I believe you set the bit rate to unconstrained, not uncompressed, it is a nuance but the format is a compressed format so I think it does make a difference. Great footage and great output.

Hi Bryan,

You are absolutely correct! The data rate is set to unconstrained and not uncompressed. I agree it is a VERY important distinction and thank you for catching that.

No problem, thanks for sharing your settings, I have always been less than thrilled with my youtube renders and might have to give your settings a whirl when i get some time.

I haven't seen a lot of chatter here about what people are using for an input file into Mpeg Streamclip. I'm working in Vegas, and in order to use Streamclip, I'd need to first export my project into a file (typically compressing in right) which would create one generation of quality loss.

Then you'd have to use Mpeg Streamclip to recompress the video to create a file suitable for uploading to Youtube, Vimeo, etc, etc...

I shoot and work with HDV footage shot in 1440x1080i. What project settings should I be using to export footage to slip into Streamclip to get this kind of quality?

Jon

Jon, I am not very familiar with Streamclip (I just visited their site after reading your post.) What advantage do you see to using the secondary render versus using Vegas's renderer?

Most of the posts in this thread revolve around the common perception that using this software can enhance the look of your video as presented on youtube. Since good quality video on Youtube seems to be such a difficult thing to obtain, I'd like to learn the optimimum way to encode video for upload to the YouTube servers.

Jon

What project settings should I be using to export footage to slip into Streamclip to get this kind of quality?
The answer is: use the highest quality format - that would be uncompressed... but in some cases that might not be feasible due to the huge resulting file size.

The next best would be your project intermediate. In my case, since I work with Edius, that would be Canopus HQ; I am not sure how Vegas works and also don't know if you're editing HDV natively or using some intermediate format (e. g. Cineform).

The general idea would be to get the video out of your NLE and into Streamclip with no recompression; you can achieve that by using the project intermediate (your original video has already been converted to that format anyway).

Reading through this thread I have tried a few different things myself and am looking for opinions....

Which looks better:

Option 1) YouTube - Christmas Concert 2009 Pt2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrmICzH2_b4)

Option 2) YouTube - Test (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tZViU82e-Q)



Thanks for your feed back!

I'm going to go with Option #1

Thanks Jon, and to further qualify my query, would you consider either "high quality" I.E. would you be happy with it?

There is a bit of color smudge on both, worse on the second. You may need to turn down chroma in your editing app.

Thanks, I use Vegas 9c any tips on how to do that?

You may want to post that question on the Vegas forum to get the best advice... I am not familiar with Vegas.

Thanks, I figured it out...

I'll put up another copy and see if that is better, but seems like my first option, which I am going to put up again is the better minus the higher chroma.

Never really noticed that until you pointed it out doh...

Better?

YouTube - Part 3 take 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS4ynC5Wpx4)

To me, it looks about the same, but to answer your question before, yes I would consider it good.. but that all depends on the audience... for a family to see their young kids... it's just fine...

Jon

Thanks Jon, I'm lookng for good settings for future stuff I plan and hope to put up as well...

If you put the original pt3 and the take 2 up side by side - I have a 31" monitor so it's pretty easy for me, you can see what he was talking about...

1:48 is a good stop spot on both...