What encoding to fill screen top & bottom with 4:3 on Youtube?

[brassplyer]

With the various changes to YouTube, I find 4:3 videos aren't filling the screen top to bottom. What type video and dimensions should I be encoding to these days?

Thanks

[manono]

You didn't provide much detail, so I'm partly guessing. If you uploaded a 1.33:1, 1:1 video, it'll fill the screen top to bottom. If you uploaded an NTSC 4:3 MPEG or some other format using non-square pixels, then it won't. For example, if you uploaded a 720x480 MPEG of some sort, it's not 1.33:1, but 1.5:1 and will be played with black on top and bottom. It'll also play with bad aspect ratio. People will be slightly fat. However, if you were to reencode it to 640x480 as an XviD AVI or an H.264 MP4 and then upload it, it will fill the top and bottom.

That said, because a lot of people make that mistake there's a workaround. Add this to the tags:

yttretch=4:3

http://help.youtube.com/group/youtube-howto/browse_thread/thread/ ... 509a070a0#

[brassplyer]

You didn't provide much detail

The original video is 740 x 480 DV, 4:3. Not sure what other detail to add. Just want it to go to the top and bottom of the Youtube screen without losing correct proportions.

The link you posted got mangled.

[manono]

Oh yeah, it did, sorry:

http://help.youtube.com/group/youtube-howto/browse_thread/thread/08a9062509a070a0#

Either reencode to 640x480, as I suggested, or add in the tag, as I suggested.

You didn't provide much detail

The original video is 740 x 480 DV, 4:3. Not sure what other detail to add.

That was the important detail you left out. YouTube expects everything to be 1:1 - not 4:3 and not 16:9. They want square pixels.

[brassplyer]

Oh yeah, it did, sorry:

http://help.youtube.com/group/youtube-howto/browse_thread/thread/08a9062509a070a0#

Either reencode to 640x480, as I suggested, or add in the tag, as I suggested.

Encoded one to Mpg4 H.264 640x480, with Super, it's still not filling top to bottom.

What would have square pixels?

[manono]

Encoded one to Mpg4 H.264 640x480, with Super, it's still not filling top to bottom.

I don't believe you. You didn't create it with the black bars already on the top and bottom, did you? Do you see black bars when just playing it on your computer in the regular small window (not full-screened)? How about a very small piece of this H.264 video and a link to the YouTube video? What has square pixels? A 720x480 DV AVI resized to 640x480 has square pixels. In its original 720x480 it doesn't.

[brassplyer]

Encoded one to Mpg4 H.264 640x480, with Super, it's still not filling top to bottom.

I don't believe you. You didn't create it with the black bars already on the top and bottom, did you? .

Seeing is believing. 720x480 DV converted to 640x480 mp4 H264 as suggested. No black bars on the original.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoKVAciSXr0

[manono]

Now, how about that same video direct from Super? Upload to a 3rd party file sharing site such as MediaFire and post the link here.

[brassplyer]

Now, how about that same video direct from Super? Upload to a 3rd party file sharing site and post the link here.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/5/31/1130283/DV_conv_to_640x480_mp4.MP4

[manono]

OK, thanks. Your 640x480 MP4 video already has the black bars on top and bottom. The reason it doesn't fill to the top and bottom on YouTube is because the video you uploaded to them doesn't fill to the top and bottom either. I don't think you can expect YouTube to remove them. It's your job when resizing to make sure they aren't added by the encoder (since you said the source DV didn't have any black bars).

I don't (and won't) use Super, but surely there's some way to have it resize without adding in the black bars. Or maybe use a different encoder. GKnot should be able to handle it OK. Load the source video. Set it for XviD. In the Advanced settings set a 640 Width. Do a 1-pass Target Quality encode at the default 75%. Upload the result to YouTube.

[jagabo]

Obviously, the the software used to convert from DV to MP4 didn't understand the source PAR and assumed square pixels. To produce a 640x480 frame from a 720x480 (3:2) source it reduced the image to 640x430 (3:2) then added black borders top and bottom to fill out 640x480 frame.

There is probably a setting somewhere in the software where you can tell it your DV source is already 4:3 DAR.

[brassplyer]

OK, thanks. Your 640x480 MP4 video already has the black bars on top and bottom. The reason it doesn't fill to the top and bottom on YouTube is because the video you uploaded to them doesn't fill to the top and bottom either.

Ah ha...I didn't realize Super was doing that. I just compared the original DV and the mp4 and the DV fills the screen on K-media player but the mp4 made by Super doesn't. Interesting.

So it actually IS filling the screen, it's just that the top and bottom margins of the video I'm sending them is a black bar.

I wondered what was going on since I've gotten video to fill the screen before, but I've used other encoders so that must be the difference. I wonder why they have it set to do that. I'll have to explore if there's an option.

I've used WinFF before, that might be how I've gotten video to fill the screen before.

Thanks for pointing out what was right in front of me.

[brassplyer]

As a follow up, using WinFF to encode doesn't yield the black bars and the Youtube upload now fills the screen.