... or so I think... Feel free to watch full screen:

YouTube - hdtest01 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKZYROJp6QQ)

Was anyone out there able to achieve better quality?

Thanks,

WOW!

I was unimpressed until I realized I hadn't clicked on "View In HD" then EVERYTHING changed. Please share your "secret"!

Nice job. What format did you shoot in and and what where your export settings?

thats so good, think youve nailed it. What was it shot with? this looks better then anything ive seen on vimeo. great depth.

I am at a lost here. Shaun say's he is unimpresses til he hit view in HD. Is there an english version button that I am not aware of? This looks like russian to me.

i think you got one of these lucky case where content almost perfectly match the encoding.
in your case, fixed, dark background with no fine details, large surface with uniform colors, few change from picture to picture, so prediction is easy etc....
you can see that the encoder is still on the edge when the baby turns the head, and the details on the hairs goes fuzzy.

I am at a lost here. Shaun say's he is unimpresses til he hit view in HD. Is there an english version button that I am not aware of? This looks like russian to me.

Blue text IMMEDIATELY under the right side of the video window, in case somehow YouTube thinks you're NOT viewing in English (which I ASSUME would be strange).

Thanks Shaun, indeed it was Russian, for some reason Youtube opens in Russian when I open it. I agree great quality, thanks for the tip.

I think using 1280 x 720p settings will get you there.

This film for the DV Challenge was sent in a letterboxed HD format before 16:9 announcement was made. They converted it after the change over, to my surprise.
But even it shows that things will look good in the future:

YouTube - Light Rider (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K10AJsaFbts)

in your case, fixed, dark background with no fine details, large surface with uniform colors, few change from picture to picture, so prediction is easy etc...
Here's take two.

Camera zooming out, background is changing, lots of changes from frame to frame (TV in background is SD).

YouTube - hdtest03 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OwCLQ-5LTQ)

Thanks Shaun, indeed it was Russian, for some reason Youtube opens in Russian when I open it. I agree great quality, thanks for the tip.

If YouTube opens in Russian, shouldn't you have responded to me by writing "Spaciba"?

Double post deleted (either the server or my internet is misbehaving).

Looks good, but playback here is very jerky! Nice furniture though. Is it Christmas already? Damn!

So I wonder - you guys will probably have good computers, but just what proportion of the public out there can actually watch HD videos..?

One experiment I did that was very interesting was when I'd downloaded a regular video off YouTube I'd worked on long ago and then tidied it up and put it on Vimeo. There was a huge increase in quality! Here's the original YouTube - James - Tomorrow (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paNrxISa4Ac) and here's is the same video on Vimeo James - Tomorrow on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/2361290) NOTE: make sure to switch HD to off (click the 'HD is on' icon). Yup, the same Flash file, and even downgraded a bit by Vimeo. Notice how much better the sound is too? Why can't YouTube play it back with the same quality?

The upshot of this is that YouTube encoding, though far from perfect, turns out to be not nearly as bad as their playback quality would suggest. it also begs the question (to me) whether a clever person could design a window that played YouTube live but at a better quality than YouTube themselves offer. And would YouTube object...

Anyone here care to do the equivalent experiment with some YouTube HD videos? See what turns up?

The James video on Vimeo isn't playing. I get a 2 second animated still for your zombie trailer.

There's always one...

Did you read this bit? "NOTE: make sure to switch HD to off (click the 'HD is on' icon)"

Tut tut...

http://vimeo.com/2361290

in my opinion take two is still favorable to codec.
walls are big white space with few details, the more you dezoom, the more we see them.
zoom and dezoom are not giving hard time to codec since it is easily predictable.
Panos are more difficult,rotation is the hardest.

Ervin, what were your settings? Was it Quicktime? Which codec? Keyframes? How big was the file? etc etc.

Cheers!

Never was much good at reading the instructions ;-)

Ervin,
That was a good test for only 20 seconds. Now try a 5 minute video at the same quality. Can you do it?

Check this out: YouTube - Misty (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5INqu-QPaJE)

... is no secret at all. I am happy to publish it for anyone who would like to use it.

Those familiar with my posts probably know that I am experimenting a lot; I did the same with this conversion. Youtube accepts all of the major formats, and as we all know, at least as of 2008, in my opinion, there is no better delivery format than MPEG4, the QT variety H.264 codec.

I tried several encoding programs capable of encoding to MPEG4/H.264, with more or less dissapointment. I tried encoding from different formats, both interlaced and progressive, I have even tried resizing, deinterlacing, and sharpening in VirtualDub - and nothing worked to my satisfaction. Not even software that sells for thousands of dollars!!!

Then I tried a FREE software, MPEG Streamclip. See the result for yourself. Now, let me just mention that at this point I do not claim total victory, as posters mentioned above, the footage might be favorable, but I think there are a LOT of resourses left in Streamclip, because I used a relatively low bitrate. I don't have the time to do a longer clip, or one with more motion, but then again, I am not trying to test the limits or to break the codec. What I tried, and I think I have accomplished, is very decent footage on the web, that delivers - I know this is subjective - at least SD DVD quality for the internet masses.

This description is for the PC, but as far as I know, it should work just about the same on the Mac.

Use the latest version of Streamclip (1.2 as of December 2008), download it from http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-win.html; you will not even have to install this little program, just unzip it and save it some place on your PC. You will also need QuickTime Alternative version 1.8.1 for reasons mentioned on the website (MPEG2 support etc). Contrary to what I read on squared5.com, the official QT and QT Alternative can live peacefully on the same computer with no issues at all.

I shot the source footage for the clip listed in the original post with a Sony Z1U as 1080/60i. Absolutely no editing, no corrections, nothing, I imported the original file into Streamclip, marked in/out points, then:

Go to File > Export to MPEG4. In the pop-up window (if not already selected) select H.264 for compression.
Click on iTunes, then select > Apple TV 1280x760 (HD), click OK.
Click and drag the quality slider to 100%.
Select Multipass and B-Frames
Limit data rate to 5Mbps is the default; I will do further testing, but I suspect that raising the data rate will allow for good picture even with faster scene changes and pans/tilts, moving subjects. Immediately to the right Streamclip will give you the expected file size, so you can go as high as you wish; Youtube set the limit to 1GB and 10 minutes play time.
Leave sound settings at the default; it should be decent even for symphonic music, definitely more than you need for rock.
Frame rate - leave blank.
Check Frame Blending and Better downscaling.
Check Deinterlace Video (deactivates Interlaced Scaling and Reinterlace Chroma).
If needed, set rotation, zoom, cropping. Under Adjustments you can manipulate brightness, contrast, chroma saturation, audio volume, or apply a watermark.
If you wish, save your settings under "Presets".
Hit Make MP4.

As far as I can tell, the software will go over your video 3 times; I speculate that the first time analises the video, it encodes it the second time, then the third time compares the resulting file with the original and makes corrections. The fourth time is very short, that's probably when the temp file is written to the location you chose.

Please DO comment, let's help each other improving internet video even further!

Thanks,

I'd take that level of quality any day.

Ervin, thanks for doing so much legwork for us on this. I'm going to try it out.

Karel, that's also very nice quality on the Misty footage.

Personally, I am trying to increase the quality of my Youtube videos to exploit the commercial aspect. Shoot a spot for a client and upload to Youtube as well as their site. Increased exposure, but if their product looks like crap because of compression artifacts, then it doesn't work real well. Vimeo doesn't allow commercial videos on their site.

Why must you have to click the "watch in HD" link at bottom of video to see in full quality?? it also does this with the standard def vids I have posted but it says "watch in higher quality." it's just kind of a pain cuz your videos don't play at there highest quality by default, you have to take an extra step, most people probably overlook this option. do you think youtube will change this anytime soon??

Brendan, if you go to your account settings on Youtube and click Playback Setup, you can choose to have the high quality video load by default. It doesn't load HD clips automatically, for some reason, and I seem to have trouble getting the damn option to stick anyway, but it's there and might work better for you than it does for me.

Seeing all that crisp, genuine HD footage makes me want to participate in this thread, but I don't own an HD camera. It just so happens, however, that over the past weeks I've been toying around with my own Youtube tests, and after much trial and error can heartily recommend uploading even SD footage that's been scaled (scaled well, at least) to HD. I can give Youtube's system the highest quality standard def footage I want, but they knock the bitrate down on the final FLV quite a bit. Looks all right, certainly better than it was way back when, but not as good as it could, especially full screen. A little AviSynth twiddling on the other hand, using a good deinterlacing script topped off with a Lanczos4Resize (with builtin crop options) gave me this: YouTube - upscaleadjustedMT.avi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDMp7O9TbsE)

I've been using that twenty seconds of footage (tested out my DV MultiRig Pro the day I got it back in early 2007) to test all sorts of deinterlacing, resizing and compression, and wouldn't you know it, the upconverted shot looks nicer on YT than a 640x360 SD version scaled to full screen in the site's flash player. It sure won't fool anyone who's seen real HD, shot with HD lenses by someone who knows what they're doing, and it takes forever to render--the deinterlacing script in question is quite intense, motion compensated bob that it is--but a careful upscale may let those of us in the DV world squeeze a smidge more quality out of the big Y.

... is no secret at all. I am happy to publish it for anyone who would like to use it.

Those familiar with my posts probably know that I am experimenting a lot; I did the same with this conversion. Youtube accepts all of the major formats, and as we all know, at least as of 2008, in my opinion, there is no better delivery format than MPEG4, the QT variety H.264 codec.

I tried several encoding programs capable of encoding to MPEG4/H.264, with more or less dissapointment. I tried encoding from different formats, both interlaced and progressive, I have even tried resizing, deinterlacing, and sharpening in VirtualDub - and nothing worked to my satisfaction. Not even software that sells for thousands of dollars!!!

Then I tried a FREE software, MPEG Streamclip. See the result for yourself. Now, let me just mention that at this point I do not claim total victory, as posters mentioned above, the footage might be favorable, but I think there are a LOT of resourses left in Streamclip, because I used a relatively low bitrate. I don't have the time to do a longer clip, or one with more motion, but then again, I am not trying to test the limits or to break the codec. What I tried, and I think I have accomplished, is very decent footage on the web, that delivers - I know this is subjective - at least SD DVD quality for the internet masses.

This description is for the PC, but as far as I know, it should work just about the same on the Mac.

Use the latest version of Streamclip (1.2 as of December 2008), download it from http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-win.html; you will not even have to install this little program, just unzip it and save it some place on your PC. You will also need QuickTime Alternative version 1.8.1 for reasons mentioned on the website (MPEG2 support etc). Contrary to what I read on squared5.com, the official QT and QT Alternative can live peacefully on the same computer with no issues at all.

I shot the source footage for the clip listed in the original post with a Sony Z1U as 1080/60i. Absolutely no editing, no corrections, nothing, I imported the original file into Streamclip, marked in/out points, then:

Go to File > Export to MPEG4. In the pop-up window (if not already selected) select H.264 for compression.
Click on iTunes, then select > Apple TV 1280x760 (HD), click OK.
Click and drag the quality slider to 100%.
Select Multipass and B-Frames
Limit data rate to 5Mbps is the default; I will do further testing, but I suspect that raising the data rate will allow for good picture even with faster scene changes and pans/tilts, moving subjects. Immediately to the right Streamclip will give you the expected file size, so you can go as high as you wish; Youtube set the limit to 1GB and 10 minutes play time.
Leave sound settings at the default; it should be decent even for symphonic music, definitely more than you need for rock.
Frame rate - leave blank.
Check Frame Blending and Better downscaling.
Check Deinterlace Video (deactivates Interlaced Scaling and Reinterlace Chroma).
If needed, set rotation, zoom, cropping. Under Adjustments you can manipulate brightness, contrast, chroma saturation, audio volume, or apply a watermark.
If you wish, save your settings under "Presets".
Hit Make MP4.

As far as I can tell, the software will go over your video 3 times; I speculate that the first time analises the video, it encodes it the second time, then the third time compares the resulting file with the original and makes corrections. The fourth time is very short, that's probably when the temp file is written to the location you chose.

Please DO comment, let's help each other improving internet video even further!

Thanks,

for some reason, no matter how i try to convert my .mov footage to .mp4, the quality depreciates significantly -- even by this method. i use a Canon XH-A1 and record HDV1080p24 QuickTime via FireStore device (FS-C), but can't see to get a quality end result after editing in FCP or iMovie HD.

any suggestions? i just intend to output to YouTube.

Travis,

first please do NOT quote long passages - there's absolutely no point, and we do care about this stuff on the forum.

Second, your post is somewhat unclear; where does your problem occur? Is it within your editor (that's not the topic of this post) or encoding for the web, AFTER you outputted your high quality edited file?

And third, please take your signature (Guiseppe Palumbo is a talentless scam artist -- avoid him at all cost) off; we don't call people names!

Thanks,

Hey Ervin,

So, I tried out your settings with a SD project I was working on, and I'm mostly pleased with the output on You Tube.

YouTube - Real Results with Ryan Episode 6 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUJNeU_rJ5E)
Watch in High Quality

That is really good! I've been struggling here with Sorenson Squeeze with very disappointing results. Nothing so far that beats a regular QT H264 upload. I'll give Streamclip a go. :-)

What I'd like to know is how get YT to default to HQ, like some users manage to do.

Karel,

See my website for a couple of videos embedded and set to play in HQ/HD. I shot these on an XHA1 and exported as h.264 1280x720.

Videography (http://www.w5digital.com/site/Videography.html)



I used the following tutorial page for instructions on how to embed and force to play in HQ(without the user having to select HQ):

How to Embed High Quality and Higher Resolution YouTube Videos on Blog or Website My Digital Life (http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/06/12/how-to-embed-high-quality-and-higher-resolution-youtube-videos-on-blog-or-website/)

Let me know what you think.

Mike Watkins

Thanks Mike, but maybe I wasn't clear enough - I meant defaulting to HQ on the YouTube page itself, like these people have done: YouTube - Jojo In The Stars (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irm6E_UbaZA) (take 12 mins out to watch this, it's brilliant). My guess is that it's an option available to paying YouTube users, but I wondered if there's any way for us to do it...?

BTW I've put up a YouTube HD & HQ Embed Code Generator (http://www.sweetheartfilms.com/YouTube_Embed_Code_Generator.html) to save folks the trouble of tweaking the embed code themselves.

Happy coding!

The only problem I see with this workflow is that unless you are converting raw video files out of the camera or uncompressed, you are somewhat left in the dark. How can you get projects out of an NLE to encode with this codec without first compressing your project into some file and then recompressing with this utility?

Jon

I tried exporting straight from the NLEs and the results are a total disaster. So far I tested Adobe Premiere and Edius, using both the included encoder and Procoder as a plug-in.

Nothing works like MPEG Streamclip. But I would also like to know why - would be so much easier to get this quality without the extra step. At this point your best option is to export at project settings (to avoid any unnecessary recompression) and then encode as described above.

If only the author of this software or someone else would make it to work as a plugin straight out of NLEs...

You know what? I am writing to Stefano right now and ask him! E-mail sent:

Stefano,

I am one of the many happy users of your free software, what a blessing for us video professionals and hobbyists!

Please take a look at this thread on the DVinfo video forum; I used Streamclip to encode some awesome video for Youtube, among other things.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/dvd-web-video-delivery/139496-i-reached-top-video-quality-youtube.html#post1009062

Question: is there a way now, or do you intend to make it possible in the future to plug Steamclip into editing software? Right now we have to export a file first and only then we can encode to whatever format we need, using MPEG Streamclip.

Thank you,

He replied just a few hours later:

MPEG Streamclip is a standalone software and not a plugin like QuickTime's export function. So you can't plug my application directly into an editing software.

It would be possible for me to make a plugin that connects MPEG Streamclip with editing applications, but this plugin would be another piece of software. In other words it would require much development time. So I'm taking it as a feature request for a future version of MPEG Streamclip.

Stefano Cinque
Squared 5 srl

Nice try Ervin.

Yeah, you may want to follow up and let him know that, again, assuming his encoding performance is in fact superior to the others, he should be able to charge for it and get a good price... I wouldn't be contemplating it if I were him, I'd be doing it. :)

Jon

So he's just the one guy? What on Earth has he managed to do that has eluded the likes of Adobe and Sorenson? He's sitting on a gold mine.

He really is sitting on one, I agree. From the info on his website, it's only him.

Yes, I did write to encourage him to further develop his software. The guy seems to be a really well intentioned person and shy by nature, he doesn't make a big deal of what he does. Some of the best software is free out there - the only other one I can think of this magnitude is VirtualDub.

I asked him to open a Paypal account and put up a link so we can compensate him for his efforts.

Ervin - agree.

One of my 2007 Music Video's

I use the same settings in Streamclip / Bitrate 5.

Host / Vimeo - From my part of the world I get faster buffer playback than on You Tube.

The Calyptonians on Vimeo (http://www.vimeo.com/3185046)

Greetings.

Here's take two.

Camera zooming out, background is changing, lots of changes from frame to frame (TV in background is SD).

YouTube - hdtest03 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OwCLQ-5LTQ)

I've got a pretty fast connection here, and the HD version sputters too much to enjoy watching it, even after allowing it to upload fully. The image quality, however, is I agree, superb.

I found the same thing but I think it has more to do with Youtube than anything... I found his Vimeo version much better...

Jon

I've got a pretty fast connection here, and the HD version sputters too much to enjoy watching it, even after allowing it to upload fully. The image quality, however, is I agree, superb.
Your limiting factor is probably your computer. Plays flawlessly here, even on my 'way less than up to date' Intel Core 2 6400 @ 2.13 GHz with only 1 GB or RAM.

This is amazing. It's super sharp. Brilliant and not even on the HD setting......how is this done????


YouTube - Dane Rumble - Always Be Here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcf6UYVKbGo)

i think you'll get really nice result with this too:
VirtualDub: Two Pass Encoding - DigiWiki (http://wiki.digital-digest.com/index.php/VirtualDub:_Two_Pass_Encoding)

just use lagarith or huffyuv lossless codec while exporting

Hey guys theese compression secrets are awesome!Thanks for keeping it real!

Hapy Easter

Yeah, great stuff... Youtube is still behind Vimeo though as far as I'm concerned..

Jon

I use blip.tv it seems to have better quality than youtube.

blip.tv (beta) (http://www.blip.tv)

Shot with an HV30, edited in Vegas 8. I followed Ervin's steps verbatim except I upped the bit rate to 15, I exported form Vegas 8 using the Cineform intermediate codec, and it processed but no picture???

So I went back and exported uncompressed. On my system it looked good but waaaay out of sync. I took a chance and uploaded to Youtube. It's "still processing" and is in sync, but looked horrible, tons of artifacts. It is complex video of nature, lots of water, ripples etc. After it finished processing, it looks fine.
YouTube - Clean Clear Water (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-s390e-LHQ)

It's a little contest entry I did with my kids, simplistic at best, but they had fun.

You first saw it with artifacts probably because their conversion program was still working on it.

15Mbps is probably overkill, but the final result is what matters, looks flawless to me.

yes, I figured that is what it was. I went high because of the complexity of the water etc. don't know if it made a difference since I didn't do it at a lower rate to compare.

BTW, I saved the preset, called it Farkas... ;)

All you have left to do is some publicity for me on your website (just visited).

Just kidding. Glad it works for you! I love Streamclip, I can do so many things with it.