Getting my DV onto YouTube

[zoomie]

Ive now got my holiday video from the MiniDV camcorder to my PC in both Type1 and Type2 .avi and dont need to edit it too much (just a little ). Couple of questions please help

1. Im not sure which editing software to use, simplicity and ease of use and end product quality are considerations but since Im going to buy a camcorder within a year that records in HD maybe a quality software from the start may be in order.

2. Is encoding into H.264 and (mp3 or AAC) the way to go?

[aedipuss]

there are some online places selling vegas movie studio 9 platinum with a $30 rebate. neweggg is about $65 after rebate/free shipping. good software decent price and will work with HD later.

youtube likes to get h264 video with aac audio. to get the best quality on yt with DV material you would have to increase the size to 1280x720 if it's widescreen or 960x720 for 4:3. and it needs to be progressive with a video bitrate over 5mbps.

[zoomie]

For YouTube Ill increase it to 960 x 720. Is the Type2 already Progressive? I think I should use the Type2 and get rid of the Type1.

When I play the Type2 clips on my PC the resolution is 720 x 480, the Type1 resolution looks the same but its proerties are "Unknown [interleaved 0].

For archiving the end product on my PC Ill leave it 720 x 480 in H.264 + AAC.

[guns1inger]

For YouTube Ill increase it to 960 x 720. Is the Type2 already Progressive? I think I should use the Type2 and get rid of the Type1.

When I play the Type2 clips on my PC the resolution is 720 x 480, the Type1 resolution looks the same but its proerties are "Unknown [interleaved 0].

For archiving the end product on my PC Ill leave it 720 x 480 in H.264 + AAC.

The resolution is the same - 720 x 480 is NTSC DV. Upscaling to 960 x 720 will most likely just result in lower quality at larger file sizes. You want HD, shoot with an HD camera.

Your playback copy cam be encoded to H264/AAC, however if by "Archive Copy" you mean the version I may come back to edit in the future, leave it DV, on the tape, or get an external HDD. Archiving with a lossy, heavily encoded format just makes editing much harder down the track, and results in much lower quality output after editing.

Also, for youtube HD I believe you have to give it 16:9 material. To do this you will have to crop your video so the final resolution is 960 x 540

[Gavino]

Is the Type2 already Progressive? I think I should use the Type2 and get rid of the Type1.

Both Type 1 and Type 2 are interlaced. The only difference is the format in which the data is stored in the file.

[DereX888]

Ive now got my holiday video from the MiniDV camcorder to my PC in both Type1 and Type2 .avi and dont need to edit it too much (just a little ). Couple of questions please help

1. Im not sure which editing software to use, simplicity and ease of use and end product quality are considerations but since Im going to buy a camcorder within a year that records in HD maybe a quality software from the start may be in order.

2. Is encoding into H.264 and (mp3 or AAC) the way to go?

Since the source is miniDV you can't get better resolution than 720x480 so go for, don't try to "upscale" it for HD.

Youtube's limit is 10 minutes or 1GB, which equals to ~2GB of miniDV video, hence unfortunately you need to compress it further.
There is no need for h.264 or AAC - drop your edited miniDV video to i.e. VirtualDub and quick encode it (1-pass CBR) to xvid+mp3 at their resolution, just deinterlkace it and use decent bitrates for audio and video. In few minutes at most you'll end up with ~200MB file size (give or take). Unless you're on a phone modem internet connection, I bet you'll upload it faster to youtube than it would take you to encode the same into h264 and then upload it, so why bother with those. Youtube will re-encode them anyways.

Short clips that don't need editing I usually just uploaded "as is" (in their native format) without any reencoding).
Longer ones you do need to re-encode because they certainly are over youtube's file size limit, and you don't want to spend an hour for uploading 10min clip either.

Also, for youtube HD I believe you have to give it 16:9 material. To do this you will have to crop your video so the final resolution is 960 x 540

gunsl1nger, miniDV cameras record natively in 16x9 720x480 for long time (unless OP's camera is very old and used matting or some other old trick to have 16x9 on tape from native 4x3 capture).
There is no need to crop nor resize it, youtube's encoding engine does read PAR and DAR correctly from DV files, it will retain 16x9 if it was shot in 16x9, and it will keep 4x3 if it was shot in 4x3 (providing Op won't re-encode files with wrong DAR or PAR during editing)

[guns1inger]

The OP actually says he would be resizing to 960 x 720, which is 4:3, for loading as a HD video on Youtube. This suggests that regardless of what the camera may be capable of, his footage is 4:3.

[DereX888]

The OP actually says he would be resizing to 960 x 720, which is 4:3, for loading as a HD video on Youtube. This suggests that regardless of what the camera may be capable of, his footage is 4:3.

I see, he said that in 2nd post (I don't know why he want to do it, as you and me said he should kept 720x480).

Just FYI to get youtube's HD source doesn't have to be 16x9.
Crop 1920x1080 source to 1440x1080 and upload it - it will be "youtubeHD" and still in 4x3.
I don't think 960x720 becomes youtubeHD quality, I'm almost sure it will be HQ only (so in OP's case he might as well stay with 720x480 as we both suggested).

[zoomie]

The 960 x 720 idea was following Aedipus' suggestion, Ive nixed that one.

I dont have any HD footage, only mentioned it because I was asking for software suggestions and my intent is to buy an HD camera somewhere down the road.

720 x 480 is the resolution Ill use and if there is no difference between H.264 and xvid except time saved by me using virtualdub I guess the choice is clear.