FLV for the web

[Garibaldi]

Does anyone know what bitrate Youtube encodes their FLV files at? I have put together some car videos on my site that I want to make available online but I'm finding that using Riva FLV encoder I need to have a bitrate of 1600 or better to make them look decent. Unfortunately, this takes quite awhile to load a small file. Do you have any recommendations on how I can increase the quality and reduce waiting time, maybe specific bitrates or dimensions for the video?

[Squash]

I just checked a video I downloaded from Youtube a couple of nights ago. It was one that had recently been posted there so it should represent their current practices. Video was 261 Kbps, 320x240, 29.970 fps.

Although they re-encode everything to FLV, they prefer that you send them divx/xvid video. From their website:

"We recommend the following settings:
* MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format
* 320x240 resolution
* MP3 audio
* 30 frames per second
Resizing your video to these specifications before uploading will help your videos look better on YouTube."

This is at: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=55745&topic=10526

You might try running it through a denoising filter when you encode. I'm just guessing but it should help reduce the typical Youtube blockiness somewhat. Use whatever bitrate makes it look good at 320x240; they're going to reduce it anyway. You don't want them re-encoding blocks that you put in there by trying to match their low-ass bitrate.

Audio on the file was 65 Kbps VBR mp3 at 22.050kHz.

Good luck.

[Garibaldi]

Thanks a lot for the info! Obviously I can see why mine were taking so much longer to load... 1000 Kbps compared to 261 is quite significant. Does it really matter what resolution I encode it at, since the bitrate will be lower anyway? Do you know of any other freeware flash encoders besides Riva? It would be nice if there was a batch encoder so I could just set my encoding settings, place my files all in a folder and let it run

[Squash]

I think I misunderstood your first post. I thought you were planning to put your clips on Youtube. I assume now that you are talking about putting those clips on your own site. If so, then here's an excellent guide:

https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?t=315188

As to the resolution, the bitrate will have to increase as resolution increases in order to maintain the quality. Just eyeball it and find the best compromise you can.

Hope this helps.