conversion options from Canon 650D to youtube.

[danceVideos]

hi,
new to video editing here, so on a steep learning curve.
Have a canon 650D and want to upload HD videos to youtube, experiencing problems and 'warnings' about video/audio synchronicity when uploading to youtube.

Have tried
- microsoft movie maker [ok, it was easy to use, windows, free and not very powerful but nice user interface]
- vlc - used gui mode and command line interface.
- ffmpeg - gui mode only so far, looking at commane line interface.
- lightworks.
Currently working on windows 7 platform, also have a ubuntu desktop that I really need to start using again.

I'm leaning towards a system that uses scripts or queueing to shrink the large videos overnight, then do the cutting in a gui environment to pick the right start/end points. microsoft movie maker was nice for this but it seemed to be the cause of mis-matched timing problems. Given my videos are of dance performances, perfect timing is important. [to the extent some professional teachers/performers/artists request their videos not be published if the video editing/youtube cannot get timing right.]

Youtube video guidelines don't help me a lot with choosing the correct settings to use. Mostly because I'm not sure how to choose the correct settings in the package I'm using.
https://support.google.com/youtube/troubleshooter/2888402?hl=en
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en&ref_topic=2888648

My video editing at moment is limited to cutting start & end points, adding a title page at start and a image at end for the events I am filming. Once I get the hang of this will look at more advanced cuts and mixes and whatever effects I feel are desirable. Would be nice to work on correcting exposure / white balance issues but working on improving my selection of camera settings and lighting at the venue.

Any pointers out there for the youtube settings? I read somewhere video bit rate should be limited to 6000 bits/s due to youtube not using higher rates and excess bitrate possibly contributing to errors. A friend mentioned audio/video timing issues would probably be due to mismatched codecs or incompatible codecs with youtube requirements.

I think I really need a good tutorial on explaining the basic settings - would love to hear from someone who has a system working, particularly on the settings required for youtube.

VLC looks like it has some powerful options at command line but documentation on how to use is scarce.
FFMPEG - similar - but still reading up on this.
lightworks - friend reccomended this but I cannot get my camera video files to load.

My camera video files as analysed by 'mediainfo'. Other video settings on the camera will produce lower resolution/different frame rates etc. Pretty sure the output below is the highest video quality possible with this model camera.
MPEG-4 (quuicktime)
video stream AVC
audio stream pcm
overall bit rate 47.0 Mbps
video stream 45.4 Mbps, 1920*1080 2 23.976 fps AVC baseline @L5.0
audio stream 1536Kbps, 48.0Kbps, 16 bits, 2 channels, PCM (little / signed)

I'm leaning towards opensource software but curious about commercial options - if only for ease of use. Featurewise the opensource packages appear to have more features than I need/can-use.

[manono]

hi,
...experiencing problems and 'warnings' about video/audio synchronicity when uploading to youtube.

I get that warning all the time and ignore it every time. If it's in synch before uploading and still in synch when played on YouTube, I wouldn't worry about it. I think it has to do with YouTube not expecting the kind of audio included with the kind of video being uploaded, but I'm not entirely sure.

I don't upload hi-def stuff but, in general, the better quality the upload (meaning the higher the video bitrate) the better quality the YouTube version.

Any pointers out there for the youtube settings?

I use CRF 18 for x264 video these days. Single pass quality-based encodes ensure you'll get the quality you choose, the final file size or average bitrate be damned.

I read somewhere video bit rate should be limited to 6000 bits/s due to youtube not using higher rates and excess bitrate possibly contributing to errors.]

Even their own recommendations are way above that. Check the 'enterprise quality' ones. I don't think there's any such thing as 'too much bitrate'. Even if that statement was once true, it's not any longer.

[aedipuss]

First DON'T shoot 24p. Shoot standard 30p. 24p is too slow and will result in slideshow type motion. From your editing apps, try to learn lightworks or buy something like sony vegas or movie studio. To get your cam files into lightworks try their eyeconverter(something like that?) To create vids it can use as source files. Export edited clips as high bitrate 1920x1080p30 mp4 for youtube.

[danceVideos]

thanks for the tips.
checked the video format options.

1. 1920x1080 @ 25fps
2. 1920x1080 @ 24fps
3. 1280x720 @ 50fps
4. 640x480 @ 25fps

oddly these options all provide the same 29:59 recording time on a 16 Gb SD card.

I read somewhere once the shutter speed for video should be at least twice the framerate.

ie:
50 fps would require shutter speed 1/100th second.
25 fps would require 1/50th second etc.

I chose option 1 or 2 based on the lighting at most dance performance venues being too low to achieve shutter speeds 1/100th second or better and also on the basis of higher resolution being a better compromise to a higher framerate.

Having said that 1/50th second is normally too slow for stills of dancers as they move fast and blurring results. So not sure what shutter speed the video mode is using as videos do not normally show blurring. (or jumpy slideshow behaviour either)

Any ideas/suggestions/pointers on how to get most out of my DSLR for video?
[yes I should buy a proper video camera instead of a DSLR....]

[aedipuss]

bummer you are in pal land, but then you guys are more used to slideshow video/tv. you could use a lens with a lower f-stop. a 35 or 50mm 1.2 is usually good and shoot 720p50, but it will most likely be converted to 25fps when uploaded to youtube.

the max time for video shot at 1080p is about 12 minutes. the camera stops when it reaches 4GB file size.