I seem to have found the decidely easy way to encode a 1080i AVCHD clip from a Sony cam (CX500V in this case) for 1080p playback on YouTube. I've been hunting high and low for the method to use with Corel's latest (X3) but haven't found it stated pointblank anywhere. I tried WMV and it would upload but was 1440 x 1080 instead of 1920 x 1080.

If you are using the Corel software, go to Share, then Create Video File. Under that, go down to MPEG-4 and bring up its submenu. The first one in that submenu is MPEG-4 HD, which is less descriptive than most other choices in all the format submenus (doesn't even mention the resolution). This turns out to be the 1920 x 1080 format. YouTube successfully uploaded and encoded a one minute private clip in this format, so I've just uploaded a real clip (what I intended to distribute) and I'm waiting to see if it works also. This is footage of an O gauge MTH Pennsylvania Railroad P5A electric locomotive, so there's plenty of motion in it. It will be interesting to see if (a) this works all around and (b) if so, do the different resolutions really look different.

I'm sure the Dolby 5.1 sound is lost in this encoding but that's minor to me. The standard audio settings are fine for YouTube.

Here's the link in case anyone wants to see it to compare for themselves. Also, this is 100% handheld if anyone wants to see Sony stabilization in action.

YouTube - O Gauge MTH Pennsylvania Railroad P5A Engine Full HD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1ua-7GGzC8)