Anamorphic video for YouTube?

[OakBloodThree]

If I have video edited from NTSC miniDV widescreen camcorder sources (i.e. 720×480, PAR=1.21), which of these is the best way to process the video for YouTube? (By "best", I mean minimal reprocessing by YouTube after upload and best final quality.) I'm editing in Vegas MS PE 7.0a (with limited native H.264) and encoding to H.264 in AVI container using the ffdshow-tryouts codec.

1. Render & encode at 864 × 480 (or similar) with square pixels. (This does work, but it seems like the horizontal scaling/interpolation will either decrease quality, increase file size needlessly or both).
2. Render at the same resolution as the source with square pixels and apply the yt:stretch=16:9 tag. (Anybody know if adding the formatting tag actually causes YouTube to reporocess the file, or does it just give directions to the player to scale the display?)
3. Render at the same resolution and PAR as the source. (I read that H.264 and non-square pixels may not get along-- is this true? Will YouTube interpret this correctly, or will I have to add the formatting tag anyway?)

Also: I'm going to render to DV-AVI first so I can print a backup copy to DV tape. Vegas will save the prerendered video, so options 2 & 3 only require encoding, not re-rendering (which I prefer of course).

What's a reasonable bitrate to encode to?

[aedipuss]

answer 1 is the most correct and youtube friendly way. use progressive output and a high enough bitrate to get decent quality 4-5 mbps is plenty.

if you want the HQ version for youtube viewing, encode to 1280x720p with over 5 mbps.

[Bonie81]

I will go with aedipuss suggestion coz while i was a uploader to youtube and using super, both, 720 × 480 with square pixels, and 720 × 480 PAR=1.21, look crappy after Youtube rendered it. I would prefer to convert any videos to following format before uploading,

1) YouTube The Best Video (1080p HD) General Specifications:

Complete name : YouTube The Best Video.mp4
Format : MP4

Video
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 5 500 Kbps +++
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Scan type : Progressive

Audio
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 256 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz


2) YouTube The Best Video (720p HD) General Specifications:

Complete name : YouTube The Best Video.mp4
Format : MP4

Video
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 2 500 Kbps +++
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Scan type : Progressive

Audio
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 256 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz

Just make sure to use a high enough bitrate to get ok quality HQ version for youtube viewing, encode to 1280x720p with over 5 mbps. It will ease up youTube rendering process after upload. Both of the above format has been already tried and look great while viewing.

All this discussion is referring to very high quality video source and step-down video bit-rate. For example, if you select youtube profile 1) stated here you need source video having video bitrate at least > 5500. Stepping up video bit rate does not help if your source video bit rate is < 5500. In later case you are wasting final size (big size bearing low quality same as source) and bandwidth too!

[V1de0Luvr]

Bonie81, where did you get this info? It looks backwards to me. YouTube will encode 1080p to about 5500 Kbps, and 720p to 3000 Kbps.

[Bonie81]

thanks for correcting typo. v-bitrates inter changed.
already corrected.

[OakBloodThree]

Thanks, all.

So: Even though the source data is 480p, scaling and encoding to 720p or more is a way to trick YouTube into allowing higher bitrate. How long before YT realizes we're "gaming the system"?

Since I'm rendering in Vegas to a 720×480 anamorphic AVI anyway, do you recommend scaling to 720p with a standalone encoder frontend like SUPER, or should I render to 720p? (I'm not sure how well my computer will handle that).

[Bonie81]

Thanks, all.

So: Even though the source data is 480p, scaling and encoding to 720p or more is a way to trick YouTube into allowing higher bitrate. How long before YT realizes we're "gaming the system"?

Not only YT but everybody know it. There are thousands of videos scaled either to 720p or 1080p from DVD-SD. But, as the source is having very high video bitrate. The video look good on YT.

Since I'm rendering in Vegas to a 720×480 anamorphic AVI anyway, do you recommend scaling to 720p with a standalone encoder frontend like SUPER, or should I render to 720p? (I'm not sure how well my computer will handle that).

There was nice n free utility something called HDVideoConverter (i forgot exact name) built only for YT for upscale to 720p or 1080p coz it can only output any video mp4+aac, not much choices. The output was also bearing very good quality.