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

[babymammoth]

example, using Quick Number Base Converter, I enter 0A1000 in the hex box and it displays the decimal as:

659456

video runs in 100th/secs so 659456/60=10.990933 minutes

if you are win user, run calc and switch to advanced mode, this do the same (Hex>Dec>Oct>Bin)

[Golgota]

AVISynth Script (for making "PNG+MP3" kind of videos):

# SCRIPT VARIABLES #
audiosource="audio.mp3"
videosource="video.png"
framerate=1
thumbduration=6

# SET AUDIO/VIDEO #
audio1 = directshowsource(audiosource)
duration1 = audio1.Audiolength / audio1.Audiorate
video1 = ImageSource(videosource, end=duration1, fps=framerate).ConvertToRGB32

# ADD MINI THUMBNAIL #
duration2 = (duration1 - thumbduration) / 2
thumb1 = imagesource(videosource, end=thumbduration, fps=framerate).ConvertToRGB32.lanczos4Resize(19,14)
thumb2 = blankclip(thumb1, length=duration2, color=$000000)
thumb3 = blankclip(thumb1, length=duration2, color=$000000)
thumb4 = thumb2 + thumb1 + thumb3
video2=Layer(video1, thumb4)

# RETURN FINAL VIDEO #
return(video2)

Fri, and the code for running through FFMPEG? sorry i'm learning a bit bout FFMPEG command now...

[SmashKing]

Hey, can I have all of your Youtube Account names? I wanna subscribe to you all to see the interesting things you're uploading Mine is SmashKing5000

[harmster]

Current conclusion until this moment:

1. Video+Audio must be (<) below 350 kbps
2. Frame 16x12

working great..last long. My Vids are over 48hrs (will publish link if requested as i'm only publishing normal video clips & audio)

Seems like Utube is playing around with the experts - closing one hole and opening others for you guys to find ... until they start to convert anything we upload or just reject it due to error as i noticed some of the "hack" video download from Utube can't be play locally - error using realplayer but Play with 16x12 frame using VLC.

[melpaik]

Sorry for bothering but what is 16x16 in a video

[harmster]

Sorry for bothering but what is 16x16 in a video

Just take ur next step by reading all the post from 1st page or at least starting from few pages behind+experimenting with all the tutorial in the previous post then u will understand

[melpaik]

Sorry for bothering but what is 16x16 in a video

Just take ur next step by reading all the post from 1st page or at least starting from few pages behind+experimenting with all the tutorial in the previous post then u will understand

okay, i'll read from page 1

[mikejf]

Current conclusion until this moment:

1. Video+Audio must be (<) below 350 kbps
2. Frame 16x12

working great..last long. My Vids are over 48hrs (will publish link if requested as i'm only publishing normal video clips & audio)

Seems like Utube is playing around with the experts - closing one hole and opening others for you guys to find ... until they start to convert anything we upload or just reject it due to error as i noticed some of the "hack" video download from Utube can't be play locally - error using realplayer but Play with 16x12 frame using VLC.

thanks for report, two questions:

1. if you pad the video to 10:59 will it playback in higher bit rate like we want? or does it do nothing?

2. thumbnails pixilated?

Seems the only problem now is the thumbnail. we got to brainstorm (and do lots of testing)!

As for how YT is rejecting vids, it's apparent that encoding goes through several steps, just like firfox's VMuTube, and they started detecting errors during encoding and subroutine those out. It seems the 16x12 method does not cause an error during encoding, which is even better, because the encoding finishes with no error, and is not flagged, yet video is untouched. The encoder is proably simply unable to encode at such low resolution. My guess of what's happening. However, it's easy to detect, just requires YT to write an extra subroutine with an initial read of the resolution and if below a set resolution, it can be flagged to be rejected.

[mcsbliss]

1. if you pad the video to 10:59 will it playback in higher bit rate like we want? or does it do nothing?

i want to know this too. i'm also wondering if a time trick is still around? if so, how? D: i think i've gotten down still images, for now... if youtube doesn't infect it with it's std's. i'll wait 29 more hours till i'm 99.9% sure lol.

[vhelp]

I suspect that the reason why teh up/down nonsense of the 'quality' encodes is partly due to
what (or, when) they encode to "each" format -- ie, today they encode first to FLV, and then
maybe 24/30 hours later, they encode to MP4. Thus, when you first upload your "hacked"
vides to YT, you might notice the HQ picutre at first, but then when they go through their
second (encoding) phase to MP4, that is when the loss of quality is realized.

Thus, that partly explains the up/down/rollercoster nonsnese of HQ vides -- some in as long as
24 hours, while in others its within a few minutes

-vhelp 4722

[vhelp]

How to detect wheather or not your vids are in HQ or are in the Que to be encoded or are
finally in LQ..

(While I was able to, I did some thinking and realization sweeps and came to certain conclusions.
I notice a few things while reviewing these threads as they were made available, which is tipically
every 10 minutes or (hay, that 10 minutes thing.. na, never mind) )

Anyways.

Its easy to detect this - (without having to wait the full 24 hrs) - do this:

Imediately go to keepvid (or the other one) and D/L *both* or all vides available, then,
wait an hour or less or whatever you feel is good, (its not important, but as long as you
obtain your freshly encoded vids as soon as you upload (when they are aready) for the
comparison) and paste you link in again and see what comes up.

Take notice of the size that is indicated. That's your first clue. Then, in the next round,
when you go through these steps again, take note of the video size. This time, if its a
little or more smaller, then you know that YT re-encoded your vids.

Other times, however, the "High Quality" vids are no longer available (you know, the ones
that you first noticed that were HQ. I found that when those no longer come
up, that this means they are gone and you now only have the YT (FLV and MP4) vids.
I think that if you don't see the vids (ie, when the keepvid or other link (I forget which one)
throws an "not found" or "no longer availble" error, that this is another indictor that the
initial HQ vids are no longer available.

I've been using this technique for the past few days. And it seems to be working well, as
an indicator for me.

PS: I would go on to say that this is a time-saver step rather than going to YT and d/l'ing
the whole video.. its unecessary.

-vhelp 4723

[SpongeFreak52]

Excellent tip, vhelp!

And guys, it DOES seem like padding still has a great effect on the overall quality of your video. I've started to skip the normal FFMPEG step, and use VMuTube instead, and the quality is far better when you put the fully padded video into VMuTube.

I got rid of the FFMPEG result video, but here's one I got from mixing VMuTube and the 16x12 technique:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbyjoGPCoko

Using FFMPEG, everything that had a lot of motion was highly pixelated, and looked awful. And actually, the bitrate on the link's video is still under 300kbps, even though it's 640x480. Not bad!

[bayme]

2. Frame 16x12

2. thumbnails pixilated?

Seems the only problem now is the thumbnail. we got to brainstorm (and do lots of testing)!

Try uploading 96x72 instead. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the barrier for this trick. And with that resolution you can have a decent thumb.

[SpongeFreak52]

Except if you're uploading a widescreen video of course. =P

[cjwcorp]

How do you make Frame 16X12?
What program do you have to use?

Do you guys mean make the RESOLUTION 16X12?

Please email me at cjwcorp@gmail.com

I need to get the new HQ Hack down.

[bayme]

Except if you're uploading a widescreen video of course. =P

Actually, no. You should always upload 4:3 AR to YouTube.

How to detect wheather or not your vids are in HQ or are in the Que to be encoded or are
finally in LQ..

I would go on to say that this is a time-saver step rather than going to YT and d/l'ing
the whole video.. its unecessary.

I hear it in the fist few seconds because at LQ it's mono, so why bother doing all this?

[mikejf]

I hear it in the fist few seconds because at LQ it's mono, so why bother doing all this?

I think Vhelp was saying you can tell if your video is still in YT queue to be encoded. I found the same thing with clipnabber- if your vid is still untouched after 24 hours you might be wondering if it's actually passed the encoder, I found that on an untouched vid clipnabber can't download the vid, and instead it returns a url path that has encoding instructions for YT's encoder.

[vhelp]

Yeah, something like, what mikejf said.

If the video is in que it might be "unavailable" at the time you paste url link into keepvid, and
this is prob the reason why you get a unailable screen in these downloaders.

So, even if you can get the video untouched at first, and depending on the timing that
its heading for the que/being processed, you might get the unavailable screen. This is
your indicator that your video is in que (unavailable) or is being encoded, hence, your
indicator that your vid has been, yes, re-encoded !!

The time-saver step I was on about is there. No need to wait 24 hours or whatever time
that was suggested

If I could make a suggestion, (though, not that it would matter, or would it) if you encode a
video and proceed to obtain your Upload-to-YT video, keep that as your reference. Then,
when you utilize the above time-saver technique, you can gauge on wheather or not YT did
re-encode your video because things like video size will be different. And, this will serve as
your indicator for touched vs. untouched !!

Then, you can post back (as frifox) has been trying to get you all to do, rather than
constantly posting your supposivly untouched videos) links, and stake your claim and
method for posting videos on YT without it being touched !!

-vhelp 4725

[SpongeFreak52]

Bayme, I was referring to the fact that the black bars on top and bottom would result in the thumbnail being, well, black.

[astin]

my file stays HQ more than two days, 480x360 20fps.

but I upload a 640x480 30fps file yesterday, today got re-encoded.

[SpongeFreak52]

Astin, what did you do different between the two FLVs? Or was it just the size/framerate?

[NorskTorsk]

just to let you know: neither 96x72 or 80x60 works. if you add that, the entire video will be encoded into those resolutions. i'll update as i test more stuff

edit: not even 19x14 worked for me.

[cjwcorp]

How do you make your videos 16x12?
I also read the 1st page, but I dont understand how you do it.

Do you make your ORIGINAL video frame 16x12? or the FLV file from VMuTube?

ARe you supposed to make the FRAME 16x12 or the RESOLUTION 16x12?

Please help me.

[astin]

Astin, what did you do different between the two FLVs? Or was it just the size/framerate?

seems that I only change those in VMuTube.

my other files which upload yesterday all stay HQ, 480x360, 20fps, 100keyframe.

[cjwcorp]

How do you choose the thumbnail that comes out?

[rajman]

So I tried the command Frifox gave in FFMPEG to make a 16x12.flv:
ffmpeg -loop_input -f image2 -i 16x12.png -vcodec flv -r 25 -g 1 -t .04 -sameq pad-16x12.flv

But I keep getting the message "Invalid duration specification for t: .04" Why is this?

[NorskTorsk]

But I keep getting the message "Invalid duration specification for t: .04" Why is this?

don't know. i got that too. changed .04 to 1 and it worked.

[frifox]

But I keep getting the message "Invalid duration specification for t: .04" Why is this?

don't know. i got that too. changed .04 to 1 and it worked.

did you use FFmpeg version SVN-r10464?

[rajman]

But I keep getting the message "Invalid duration specification for t: .04" Why is this?

don't know. i got that too. changed .04 to 1 and it worked.

did you use FFmpeg version SVN-r10464?

I got the latest version from this site http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/ffmpeg/

file titled 'ffmpeg.rev12665.7z'

[frifox]

try SVN-r10464. i stole it from MeGUI :P

in my tests, i found latest builds to be quite picky. such as, muxing into flv container rarely worked without crashing, and some mp3's caused ffmpeg to freeze. there are other bugs i encountered too....

so i snatched FFMPEG from MeGUI, which didnt have those bugs... and that build was SVN-r10464