Youtube Upload, increase quality/control (HQ hack obsolete)

[frifox]

Interesting. Sounds like it's worth a try. And you were sounding so secretive on YouTube. :P

thats because there are 3 different ways to trick youtube into letting FLV's stay HQ...

1. the width being <= 16, which babymammoth was talking about
2. messing with timestamps, as i explained above
3. another way, which is as easy as just clicking one button

i was "secretive" about the third way, cuz i was not the one to discover it and the person who found it strongly asked me to keep it a secret...

in the post above i explained the "2nd" method, which is messing with timestamps... and since i found it, i feel free to share it with anyone

[rajman]

Hey Frifox since you cant share the 'easy' method as someone else found it out...can you help on your method of the changing the timestamps? Ive made a FLV <350kbps but I tried some hex editing but it gets re-encoded on youtube or after uploaded it says 'invalid file type' any help would be great

[mikejf]

frifox, how to find last timestamp in a flv file?

[frifox]

video packets start with 09 AA AA AA BB BB BB, where "AA AA AA" is the size of the packet (DataSize), and where "BB BB BB" is the TimeStamp... for audio, 09 simply changes to 08. so the format for audio packet is "08 AA AA AA BB BB BB"....

the TimeStamp gradually increases with the next packet...and through out my experiments the DataSize field was pretty much same for all video packets, and all audio packets has same DataSize as well so i was able to spot the beginning of the packed by simply searching for "09 AA AA" and "08 AA AA" respectively

i didnt explore this method deep enough meaning that i cant really tell what exactly causes youtube's encoder to crash on the FLV, so at times it works and sometimes it doesnt... but i do can tell you that if you mess with enough timestamps then youtube will leave your FLV in HQ (and report fake duration lol)

[brassplyer]

Generating thumbnails is still big issue, guys any idea how to resolve this problem?

If the video is short enough, add enough black on the end so that the 75% mark is reasonably well separated from the end of the material, figure out where the 75% point is and insert a few seconds of the image you want so it straddles that point to give yourself some margin of error. Inserting a single frame never works for me since when I kludge together .flv segments, the time always seems to get stretched a bit and the target point is moved.

[rajman]

video packets start with 09 AA AA AA BB BB BB, where "AA AA AA" is the size of the packet (DataSize), and where "BB BB BB" is the TimeStamp... for audio, 09 simply changes to 08. so the format for audio packet is "08 AA AA AA BB BB BB"....

the TimeStamp gradually increases with the next packet...and through out my experiments the DataSize field was pretty much same for all video packets, and all audio packets has same DataSize as well so i was able to spot the beginning of the packed by simply searching for "09 AA AA" and "08 AA AA" respectively

i didnt explore this method deep enough meaning that i cant really tell what exactly causes youtube's encoder to crash on the FLV, so at times it works and sometimes it doesnt... but i do can tell you that if you mess with enough timestamps then youtube will leave your FLV in HQ (and report fake duration lol)

Thanks for that frifox...I gotta brush up on my hex editing and see how far I get XD

[brassplyer]

Interesting. Sounds like it's worth a try. And you were sounding so secretive on YouTube. :P

thats because there are 3 different ways to trick youtube into letting FLV's stay HQ...

1. the width being <= 16, which babymammoth was talking about
2. messing with timestamps, as i explained above
3. another way, which is as easy as just clicking one button

Even with your super secret 3rd method, will it allow bitrates higher than 350kb?

[frifox]

yes, if you are willing to pad it with black frames but the "average" still has to be <350Kbps

480x360, 20fps, 1Mbps:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vvxugWXfRGc

[SpongeFreak52]

Is it a program or something? Or can we at least contact the guy who discovered the third way? =P

Sorry if we're sounding annoying. Heh, we just want HD videos once more!

[frifox]

feel free to, its strangely2familiar

[rajman]

feel free to, its strangely2familiar

lol I already aksed him earlier but had no reply even though he did login....so I guess he wants to keep it secret =(

[SpongeFreak52]

Heh, not much of a surprise. ^_^

[brassplyer]

yes, if you are willing to pad it with black frames but the "average" still has to be <350Kbps

480x360, 20fps, 1Mbps:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vvxugWXfRGc

So it's the same "bitrate stuffing" method that YouTube recently thwarted, but messing with the file info to thwart their thwart?

Thwart Wars....long ago on a video site far away...

I fooled around with that method myself but the problem I find is that - as with your example above - playback sucks. The higher the true bitrate the worse it gets. I assume it's because YT's servers were never meant to deliver such a dense bitrate and you basically have to allow the whole file to load to get uninterrupted playback.

I assume that one Bulldozer trance vid of yours I saw plays back well because it's a still image and was encoded at a low bitrate. A moving image at that same rate wouldn't look all that great.

At least with the &fmt=18 method the playback is generally smoother, I assume since the mpeg-4 is throttled to a bitrate their servers can handle.

What I don't understand is since they obviously retain the stereo audio, why the "watch in high quality" doesn't play back stereo if available?

[SpongeFreak52]

Probably because having stereo audio requires a higher chunk of the total bitrate, and they want to have the "High Quality" setting devote more of what bitrate it can feed towards the video, not audio.

[frifox]

i've download some vids from youtube and found that youtube caps the download speed to 160KBps but at times it goes as low as 100KBps

160KBps = 1280Kbps
100KBps = 800Kbps

so if you keep your vids below 800Kbps you can safely assume that they will not glitch... the video i posted above is 1000Kbps. i played it at night and it didnt glitch at all because youtube's servers were able to give the full 160Kbps delivery, but i tried this morning and it was glitching like crazy. probably cuz of rush hour or something like that

[brassplyer]

Probably because having stereo audio requires a higher chunk of the total bitrate, and they want to have the "High Quality" setting devote more of what bitrate it can feed towards the video, not audio.

I don't perceive that stereo playback takes anything away from the video.

Watch this test in high quality vs &fmt=18 with stereo. Do you see any difference in the video? Even at fullscreen they look the same to me.

[frifox]

hey guys, i just tested youtube's download speed couple of times and here is what i found...

1. download starts at around 160KBps, stays like that for 10 seconds
2. for the next 10 seconds it drops gradually to 100Kbps
3. for the next 10 seconds it stays at about 100Kbps
4. for the next 10 seconds it again slowly drops to 80KBps
5. after that it the download just stays at constant 80KBps

is anybody seeing this too?

[brassplyer]

hey guys, i just tested youtube's download speed couple of times and here is what i found...

1. download starts at around 160KBps, stays like that for 10 seconds
2. for the next 10 seconds it drops gradually to 100Kbps
3. for the next 10 seconds it stays at about 100Kbps
4. for the next 10 seconds it again slowly drops to 80KBps
5. after that it the download just stays at constant 80KBps

is anybody seeing this too?

You mean d/l'ing files with something like Vdownloader? My bargain basement 768KBps DSL levels off at about 93kbps.

[frifox]

ok, frifox reporting here again

padding the video with black frames to fit high bitrates into sub 350Kbps average is not necessary... all you have to do is change second-to-the-last video (or audio, doesnt matter) packet's timestamps to your desired value... as in example below, i changed it to 10:59, which is "0A 10 00" in HEX.


Example: 768x432 @ 1500Kbps without padding
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksM8qucczvU

[Ramza126]

Hello Frifox. I used your programmes VMuTube and IMuTube up to the point of 20th may. I see there are many new ways to get HQ, and I see you are currently messing with timestamps. What I would like to know is what software did you use to convert video's to flv and what software you used to encode etc. Also what HexEditor did you use? I would like to know the key softwares and methods so I can finally upload some HQ vids on my page again. Also, will you be writing a guide in the future?

Ramza126

[mikejf]

ok, frifox reporting here again

padding the video with black frames to fit high bitrates into sub 350Kbps average is not necessary... all you have to do is change one of packet's timestamps to your desired value... as in example below, i changed it to 10:59, which is "0A 10 00" in HEX.


Example: 768x432 @ 1500Kbps without padding
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksM8qucczvU

holy cow frifox! that is almost High Definition! Thanks for the info. I still have a hard time finding last timestamp. Do I need to search for the last 08 AA AA AA BB BB BB or for last 09 AA AA AA BB BB BB in the flv file? Then change the BB BB BB to 0A 10 00?

[frifox]

ahh, the effects of last-minute post editing... lol edited part:
all you have to do is change second-to-the-last video (or audio, doesnt matter) packet's timestamps to your desired value

but other than that, you are on the right track

[brassplyer]

ok, frifox reporting here again

padding the video with black frames to fit high bitrates into sub 350Kbps average is not necessary... all you have to do is change one of packet's timestamps to your desired value... as in example below, i changed it to 10:59, which is "0A 10 00" in HEX.

Interesting, but I was hoping you'd upload something impressive.


I'm kidding of course. Pretty cool. Even looks decent in full screen mode.

I downloaded a Hex editor, how do you know where to go to edit something like this?

[mikejf]

ok, frifox reporting here again

padding the video with black frames to fit high bitrates into sub 350Kbps average is not necessary... all you have to do is change second-to-the-last video (or audio, doesnt matter) packet's timestamps to your desired value... as in example below, i changed it to 10:59, which is "0A 10 00" in HEX.


Example: 768x432 @ 1500Kbps without padding
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksM8qucczvU

bingo! got it working! cant thank you enough! two questions- when I download your new vid with clipnabber, MediaInfo reports

Bit Rate:318
Width:768
Height:432
Aspect ratio:16/9

yet you say it's "@ 1500Kbps". Which is it- 318 bit rate or 1500? I uploaded a vid that used to be padded with black to 10:59 but doesn't look quite as good as it did with the pads, as if playing at a higher bit rate. why?

[frifox]

Bit Rate:318
Width:768
Height:432
Aspect ratio:16/9

thats the "fake" bitrate which resulted from the fake duration, not the actual one

[diddyman4real]

Bit Rate:318
Width:768
Height:432
Aspect ratio:16/9

thats the "fake" bitrate which resulted from the fake duration, not the actual one

dude, plz tell me i can finally start trying to upload pass the 11 min mark with this new method some how. i've been tryingon my own but i can't get anywhere. can i use your method to try and crack yt's patch?

[astin]

so difficult.....

seems that the width<16 method is easier, but I still fail

[Golgota]

i'm not so good in programming, i wish if VMuTube can be applicated again.. how bout the the 3rd method Fri..?

[inet]

PS: anybody knows of a tool/script that can modify ALL timestamps, not only the keyframe ones, easily? cuz doing it manually with HEX editor is a pain in the arsch

are you looking for something like this that modifies the timestamp:

http://rubyforge.org/projects/flvtool2/

[SpongeFreak52]

It's amazing how many workarounds have been discovered already.

Oh, and Frifox, please check your e-mail.