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

[mikejf]

zappa_engine, thanks for all your hard work- testing your method now, need to wait 24 hours...will let you know how it goes

[Ronkis]

do i have to encode the .flv video in any special way or with a
special program for your way to work zappa_engine?

i made a test, just two HQ computerhardware pictures,
a curlfade thing, 10 second video, 640x480 @ 2000kbps..
about 3mb big..

but it get encoded right away.. to low quality 300kb big..

[mikejf]

zappa_engine' s method good so far after 5 hours...what I'm doing is old method with Vegas (padded to 10:59), then VMTube 1.1 to create the flv, then zappa_engine's exe. Gotta wait 48 hours though to see if it holds.

[zappa_engine]

i made a test, just two HQ computerhardware pictures,
a curlfade thing, 10 second video, 640x480 @ 2000kbps..
about 3mb big..

Well according to my math, a 10 second clip at 2000kbps, would mean the resulting file is 2.5mb, which is different from 3mb. Are you doing any post-processing to the file to add 0.5mb to it? If so, it would add some kbps to the file and could push the overall kbps over 350kbps YouTube limit which triggers automatic re-encodes.

Another possibility is audio/codec that might not be supported at this time, like VP6, triggers a re-encode.

There could be other things I'm not thinking of now. Other than that, I'm not really sure. Do you think you could provide a link for me with the source flv file to check it out? You could do this in private message if you like Or send to my e-mail, zappa_engine@yahoo.com

[FoxLocked]

zappa it doesn't work...
I open the FLV Reader.exe and it open's and closes and i don't see a video_only.flv

Can you try running the program from a console window? It will display messages which could give useful information as to why it's not working.

But if I were to guess the issue, I would guess it's not finding a proper input file. Do you have a file in the same directory called video.flv ? Since you're running from a windows directory without the benefit of a prompt window, there's not an easy way to enter parameters into the program such as the input file, so it will default to trying to use video.flv and if it doesn't find it, you may not get a video_only.flv because it can't read in anything.

PS: You could create a batch file to set up parameters.

Console Window??
Here's a video of my trouble
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoyUPhqDvsY

[zappa_engine]

Thanks FoxLocked. I had to be very quick on my pause/play button to catch that message being displayed in the console :P

It looks like it isn't finding the video.flv file although it shows inside your folder. It is a Windows thing to hide known file extensions. So even though we see video.flv in the folder, the system may actually see it as "video.flv.flv"

Can you try renaming the "video.flv" to just "video" and then try running the program again

[FoxLocked]

OH!! it works thanks im gonna try to upload it now!!

[Assault]

Ran into a problem now zappa.

Your program is still finding and processing the file, and outputting video_only.flv, but when I'm uploading it is taking more than 30 minutes to process a 3 minute file, and it re-encoded it. Also, when I tried opening video_only.flv in MediaInfo, it said the resolution was 480x360 and it wouldn't display the bitrate or length, as well as a lot of other information. Is that normal?

[zappa_engine]

I just want to note something because some people may think I solved how to upload videos unmodified. I don't want to step on any ones toes.

I didn't solve anything.

I took ideas I've read on this forum, created a tool to analyze successful files, and simply mimicked what has worked, and put it into a program to do it all.

Please give credit to those who actually solved how to upload these videos untouched.

So in part, when I am trying to figure out why something works or doesn't work, I am not actually an expert on the subject. The only thing I can say I'm an expert on is the FLV file structure, and even then I'm only barely an expert, having studied it for only the past week or so.

[zappa_engine]

Ran into a problem now zappa.

Your program is still finding and processing the file, and outputting video_only.flv, but when I'm uploading it is taking more than 30 minutes to process a 3 minute file, and it re-encoded it. Also, when I tried opening video_only.flv in MediaInfo, it said the resolution was 480x360 and it wouldn't display the bitrate or length, as well as a lot of other information. Is that normal?

It doesn't copy metadata tag info into video_only.flv which is what MediaInfo may depend on to grab it's information. Actually as the program is in alpha stage, the thumbnail.flv.tag it attaches was a pre-created 480x360 video tag, and that's what MediaInfo is seeing. Supposely, the program should scan the original file and create a custom video tag to match the main resolution of the video. So I would say, yes it's normal for MediaInfo to display pretty much no information.

Usually my files upload do take some time to process. If it's getting re-encoded, there may be issues with the file being > 350kbps, or longer than 10:59 minutes, or using an unsupported codec, or other issues. I'd be interested in taking a look at the source.flv if you're willing to share, through private message or e-mail zappa_engine@yahoo.com

[Assault]

edit: nvm

[zappa_engine]

Okay well remember when I said I didn't test the program without ffmpeg. It turns out that it doesn't work quite right without ffmpeg. The auto-pad feature appends the thumbnail frame, the rejector frame, the main video, and then it tries to attach the "end of video" frame (this displays That's all folks, actual time ##:##) screen, and then the final pad for large bitrate videos. Without ffmpeg, it doesn't create the "end of video" frame, so it exits before it gets a chance to append the final pad frame. Next release will fix this.
This issue doesn't affect users who do have ffmpeg in the same directory though. Sorry, it's an alpha product. Thanks for testing

EDIT: Here's the minor update, source and binary as usual. If you don't have ffmpeg, no problem. This update will work fine without it. If you have ffmpeg, great. Also, the auto-padder will pad the video file until it averages 349kbps, instead of 335kbps now, so you can upload slightly larger files now.
http://flvbuilder.googlecode.com/files/flvreader-080705.zip [obsolete]
http://flvbuilder.googlecode.com/files/flvreader-080706.zip [obsolete, auto-padder trying to pad files < 350kbps. fixed]
http://code.google.com/p/flvbuilder/downloads/list [updated downloads are here now]

[Assault]

Thanks for the great work and support zappa, I hope you continue, you're doing a favor for a lot of people.

[zappa_engine]

No problem guys. Now that you guys can post high bitrate videos as a standard video, I have a request to everyone who does, and it's sort of a selfish request but I think it will fit the profile of many.

It's fun to upload super high quality 3000kbps videos, but don't. Try uploading something like 720kbps videos. That way people are still able to stream videos without stutter. I believe 768kbps is common baseline broadband speed, so after the overhead of network, a 720kbps bitrate video should stream fine and the quality isn't too bad, to be honest with you. Thanks!

[dzvero007]

zappa_engine, I've just tested your utility. It works very well. I congratulate you about that

[zappa_engine]

Thanks dzvero007. I'm glad it is working for you now

I'd just like to note I updated the code again because the auto-pad feature was broken. It would detect if it needed to pad the file and do padding. However if the file was lesser than 350kbps, it didn't need to pad, yet the program went ahead and tried to pad the output file. It should not do that anymore with this update.

Thanks for the reports guys. I'll try to get bug fixes out as soon as possible. You guys have a working product now. But as for the new features, I'll take my sweet time

[Renzo88]

Thanks Zappa ! Autopad seems to work now. It didn't before. Anything above 350kbs got converted,(with no sound) even after I hexed the bit rate . This is good for uploading stereo,etc, but it still limits me from uploading HQ FLVs above 6mins with 700kbs+. and I have similar problem with w16 method. I can bypass the encoding but have to temper with hexing tool to get the passable quality. Is this normal ? I can't upload Super Quality even if I wanted to, hmmm...

[zappa_engine]

The cap for filesize is ~28mb. I believe 700kbps at over 6 minutes is around 31-32mb.

[virtualgamesco]

Hey, zappa. I don't have Sony Vegas, or anything fancy like that - just Windows Movie Maker. Could you suggest a good free converter?

[dzvero007]

Hey, zappa. I don't have Sony Vegas, or anything fancy like that - just Windows Movie Maker. Could you suggest a good free converter?

Try this one: http://www.erightsoft.com/S6Kg1.html

[harmster]

Thanks Zappa_Engine for the great tool

working great . BTW I combined with FriFox Vmutube batch script for easier processing... BTW it's a Superb tool!. Thanks Again

[Ronkis]

i made a test, just two HQ computerhardware pictures,
a curlfade thing, 10 second video, 640x480 @ 2000kbps..
about 3mb big..

Well according to my math, a 10 second clip at 2000kbps, would mean the resulting file is 2.5mb, which is different from 3mb. Are you doing any post-processing to the file to add 0.5mb to it? If so, it would add some kbps to the file and could push the overall kbps over 350kbps YouTube limit which triggers automatic re-encodes.

Another possibility is audio/codec that might not be supported at this time, like VP6, triggers a re-encode.

There could be other things I'm not thinking of now. Other than that, I'm not really sure. Do you think you could provide a link for me with the source flv file to check it out? You could do this in private message if you like Or send to my e-mail, zappa_engine@yahoo.com

well i said about haha your right was smaller..

but i still cant get it to work, even with the latest version of your tool..

i dont have to hex edit or do any other things to the video than using your tool?

will upload the test .flv on rapidshare and send you a link zappa..

very nice work by you either way

edit: sent you a pm now with the link, its 2 videos, 20 seconds long, same video just different quality

edit 2: wops, in mediainfo the videos say Format: VP6.. haha sorry for wasting your time zappa
will try a H.263 now

edit 3: damn to bad VP6 doesnt work, much better quality than H.263

edit 4: H.263 worked like a charm

edit 5: haha *load of edits here is there any chance to get VP6 working, or is that simply not possible?
a 800kb VP6 is better quality than a 1.5mb H.263 of the same video

[virtualgamesco]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46LbCcQt5x0
^ How does that look?

[FoxLocked]

it looks great.
Heres my video test that i did on Zappa's program

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_ddB3qEfEC4

[virtualgamesco]

^Very nice!

[Ronkis]

i did some tests now, using zappas tool..
30 second video at
960x720 @ 1500
640x480 @ 1500
480x360 @ 1500
480x360 @ 700

all worked but after 10 minutes or so the
960x720 @ 1500
and the
640x480 @ 1500
got encoded to low quality..
the two others are still untouched

edit: now the 480x360 @ 700 got encoded to low quality as well
edit2: and now the last one got encoded to low quality as well

[neohanime]

OMG Ronkis, you beat me to it. Just registered to tell this also. My video was very high quality for about five minutes, then it gets re-encoded and now I'm watching the crappy quality. What gives huh?

[Renzo88]

The cap for filesize is ~28mb. I believe 700kbps at over 6 minutes is around 31-32mb.

yeah, You can't do much with that, only if YT gave us more time limit . btw all the vids < 350kbs stayed after 20 hours and most of my tests 480X360 @1800kbs stayed untouched after 9 hours. Couple of 640x480 got re-encoded
except ones with low bit rate.

[neohanime]

So what is the ultimate settings so that YouTube won't re-encode my uploaded videos?

Here is my setup on one of the video, but it gets re-encoded after 5-10 minutes:

Format : Flash Video at 317 Kbps
Length : 8 MiB for 3mn 41s 600ms

Video #0 : H.263 at
Aspect : 640 x 480 (1.333) at 30.000 fps

Audio #0 : MPEG Audio at 32.0 Kbps
Infos : 2 channels, 44.1 KHz

[Ronkis]

ive tryed many different formats and bitrates now and all get re-encoded within 10 minutes..