Videotape Master to YouTube...

[Alessandro Machi]

I have a videotape master ready to go onto YouTube, can I avoid final cut pro entirely and just create an MPEG-4 file? What are my NON-NLE software choices for creating an MPEG-4 file?

Do the most expensive software choices offer more choices and options in how the MPEG-4 file is created? Are there variable bit MPEG-4 software programs?

Do MPEG-4 software options also recognize the videotape deck I am using? What if I want to use a high quality DVD copy, will the software program recognize the DVD deck via the firewire connection?

Do MPEG-4 software options also have component inputs available?

Thanks in advance.

[Alessandro Machi]

Is this what I'm looking for?

http://www.plextor.com/english/products/TV402UMac.htm

Has anyone used this device?

[Herman Van Deventer]

Alessandro - This is what i use for VBR MPEG 4 / DIVX - You tube.

Best bang for the buck / Link /http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/te4xp.html

The plextor box worries me because of the Low Quality imputs available
VHS & SVHS.

[Alessandro Machi]

Originally Posted by Herman Van Deventer

Alessandro - This is what i use for VBR MPEG 4 / DIVX - You tube.

Best bang for the buck.... http://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/te4xp.html

The plextor box worries me because of the Low Quality imputs available
VHS & SVHS.

I checked out the link you provided, it appears to be more versatile but is the software available for Macs?

S-Video is not necessarily low quality. I have betacam sp masters that can take advantage of s-video output that the plextor provides. However, it appears that the plextor device does not do quicktime???

[Herman Van Deventer]

Sorry. The tool for mac's would be MPEG STREAMCLIP / freeware.

[Alessandro Machi]

What are the differences between MPEG-4 and Quicktime?

Once a video has transferred to one or the other file format, can this file then be transferred to the other format? MPEG-4 to Quicktime, or Quicktime to MPEG-4?

[Herman Van Deventer]

I presume that when you use the term Quiktime that you refer to your source
footage format on your NLE's timeline.

That native footage is in Quiktime format captured at a given framesize etc.
can be compressed into Quiktime or Mpeg 4.

The codec involved / bitrate / frame size / vbr / cbr etc... will eventually
determine the quality difference between the two formats.

Depending on the prog you use , you will be able to re-encode from one
format to another.

Take Mpeg streamclip for a testdrive to evaluate the different results.
Also keep in mind that there is other compression format codecs also
available.

Several forum members has claimed satisfying results from both the format's.
Also keep in mind that You Tube is reknown for their re-encoding of your
encoded clip. IFilm seems to house your clips at a better quality.

Sorry for the language . English is not my native language.

[Alessandro Machi]

So I finally experienced what everyone else experiences, transcoding from video to computer just never seems to go easy in the beginning.

In my case I was able to easily transcode some decent looking betacam sp masters into compressed computer video files, however the file name has a wrapper on it called "eyetv".

When I export "eyetv" to mpeg-4 it recompresses the footage and man does it go down in quality.

Elgato, the makers of eyetv, claim I can recompress from an eyetv file to mpeg-d without recompressing but so far I cannot get the "native" export function to work.

Hopefully, I'll get more info on Monday directly from the company, in the meantime it just sucks hours away trying different combinations that don't solve the problem.

[Michael Nistler]

Originally Posted by Alessandro Machi

What are the differences between MPEG-4 and Quicktime?

Once a video has transferred to one or the other file format, can this file then be transferred to the other format? MPEG-4 to Quicktime, or Quicktime to MPEG-4?

Hi Alessandro,

Despite the documentation on YouTube, you'll probably be getting much better picture quality avoiding MPEG-4. Use your Quicktime and don't be afaird to use 640x480 at 1000 Kbps (assuming you're output file is under 100MB). While encoding settings can be a complex topic, it's unfortunate there's so much bad/misleading information such as recommending 320x240, when in reality YouTube re-encodes to 448×336 pixels (at 4x3). So unless your fighting a 100MB file size limit, don't encode at a pixel rate lower than YouTube's final output.

(for others - yes, you can get good results with h.264, windows media, FLV, etc)

Good luck, Michael

[Alessandro Machi]

Originally Posted by Michael Nistler

Hi Alessandro,

Despite the documentation on YouTube, you'll probably be getting much better picture quality avoiding MPEG-4. Use your Quicktime and don't be afaird to use 640x480 at 1000 Kbps (assuming you're output file is under 100MB). While encoding settings can be a complex topic, it's unfortunate there's so much bad/misleading information such as recommending 320x240, when in reality YouTube re-encodes to 448×336 pixels (at 4x3). So unless your fighting a 100MB file size limit, don't encode at a pixel rate lower than YouTube's final output.

(for others - yes, you can get good results with h.264, windows media, FLV, etc)

Good luck, Michael

What I am finding is the 1,000 Kbps is not enough.

http://www.slingshotpro.com has a youtube video on page one that I was the editor on. I edited directly to betacam sp and then I made dvd copies for the client. Somebody who received a dvd copy then uploaded it to youtube.

The dvd to Youtube transfer looks better than my betacam sp thirty second commercials that I have also uploaded to my website. How can someone take a dvd copy that I made from a betacam sp master and then get better quality uploads to youtube then when I go directly from my own betacam sp masters directly to a digital file that then gets uploaded to youtube?

The answer that I have come up with so far is I am being bottlenecked by the 1,000 kbps speed on my initital download from my betacam sp tape.
At that point, no matter what I do, it ends up looking embarrassingly bad.

[Michael Nistler]

Originally Posted by Alessandro Machi

What I am finding is the 1,000 Kbps is not enough.

http://www.slingshotpro.com has a youtube video on page one that I was the editor on. I edited directly to betacam sp and then I made dvd copies for the client. Somebody who received a dvd copy then uploaded it to youtube.

The dvd to Youtube transfer looks better than my betacam sp thirty second commercials that I have also uploaded to my website. How can someone take a dvd copy that I made from a betacam sp master and then get better quality uploads to youtube then when I go directly from my own betacam sp masters directly to a digital file that then gets uploaded to youtube?

The answer that I have come up with so far is I am being bottlenecked by the 1,000 kbps speed on my initital download from my betacam sp tape.
At that point, no matter what I do, it ends up looking embarrassingly bad.

Huh, I'd be surprised that you're finding 1,000Kbps is too low for YouTube! Perhaps the devil is in the details but for most situations, most of us have enjoyed favorable results. For sure, your cite about other re-encoding a DVD with better results must be frustrating - I'd guess that would be a function of the encoder itself. What are you/they using? Also, tell us more about the video content or, better yet, share the links so we can see for ourselves.

Regards, Michael

[Alessandro Machi]

Originally Posted by Michael Nistler

Huh, I'd be surprised that you're finding 1,000Kbps is too low for YouTube! Perhaps the devil is in the details but for most situations, most of us have enjoyed favorable results. For sure, your cite about other re-encoding a DVD with better results must be frustrating - I'd guess that would be a function of the encoder itself. What are you/they using? Also, tell us more about the video content or, better yet, share the links so we can see for ourselves.

Regards, Michael

Here are samples of my uploads.

http://www.slingshotpro.com/4.html

[Alessandro Machi]

I should add that because of the multiple small squares I need to use more than the 1mb/second. Youtube gives me 100mb per video, why only use 25 of them?

[Michael Nistler]

Hmm, in the most recent dvinfo contest here's the quality I obtained at 1,000kbps:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu4QikWdVGI (small window)
http://www.youtube.com/v/Bu4QikWdVGI&rel=1 (large window)
http://www.bridgehands.com/video/Crystal_Clear.wmv (fastest play time)
http://www.bridgehands.com/video/Crystal_Clear.m4v (1 min delay, best fidelity H.264)

The pixelation you'll notice on YouTube is a function of their codec combined with non-optimized video. Reducing camera movement, eliminating cross-dissolves, etc certainly would improve the YouTube problem - not an issue encoding with Windows Media or H.264 with files on typical servers (as opposed to YouTube). We get what we pay for...

Good luck, Michael

[Alessandro Machi]

The difference in programming style is that in some 30 second commercials the combining of several elements at once requires a higher bit rate or nothing registers that well. Whereas in many short films that arre significantly longer than 30 seconds the viewer gets longer moments to assess what is going on and can accept a lower bit rate.