Tutorial on encoding for YouTube high quality - feedback requested

[webvideopro]

I have written a tutorial on how to encode your videos for the new YouTube high quality option. The tutorial is aimed at the beginner to intermediate user. I was hoping that a few people would be willing to take a look and let me know what you think. Am I missing any important instructions, are my settings way off, etc.

The tutorial is located at: http://webvideotechniques.com/35/how-to-encode-your-videos-for-youtubes-new-high-quality-option

I have learned so much from this forum and I want to be able to give back good information to others. Thanks in advanced for your comments and suggestions.

[maxamillion]

Looks pretty good, I'll download and give it a try using your settings

[webvideopro]

4 days and only a single reply?! Man, I thought at least you guys would be telling me how bad it was!

[maxamillion]

I followed your directions and here's a link to the video in hd http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOG_kvPVt84
The original file was a Windows Media Player (.VOB) 410 mb's, after editing with your tutorial the output size was still pretty large, but it turned out pretty good, I may play with some of the settings a little bit.

[Captain Satellite]

Hmmm, I always get the high quality option.

[seiun]

Hi,

actually, I found your guide and found this site later on. I'm a beginner who wanted to upload a HQ video. For the most part the guide worked well. However, I'm having trouble with the normal quality option on my video. I just wrote a post on this board, including a link to your guide.

Do your videos turn out fine in normal quality as well as high quality?

Thanks

[webvideopro]

seiun

The YouTube "Normal" quality is not very good quality in general. I know you used to be able to encode a low bitrate FLV file and not have it reencoded, but I am not sure if that is still the case though. Do you have a link to one of your videos you can post?

The guide is primarily to target the higher quality options vs the normal quality, but the general rule with the encoding is that the higher quality source you can provide to the encoder, the better.

[seiun]

I sent you a message with a link to the video.

If you have an idea of what's causing the problem, please let me know. Thanks!

(The problem is the "high quality" video streams, but the normal quality downloads really slowly.)

Seiun

[NerdWithNoLife]

Is 4000kbps really better? Out of curiosity, I uploaded test videos and found no difference. I usually use 1000kbps if the video is easy to compress, and 2000kbps for faster moving 640x360 ones. Whatever makes it look great with no noticeable artifacts.

There's a problem that may come up for people with screen capture videos, and music videos with a still image: if the video has low motion,it may not reach the target bitrate. For H.264, the threshold for HQ seems to be 600kbps, for Xvid around 900kbps. With x264 configured to lossless, I've ended up with bitrates of just 28kbps with still image videos. You must check with MediaInfo to know what the actual bitrate is, even if you set it at 8000kbps. If it's too low, you need to configure the encoder to lossless, then under rate control, lower the Min and Max IDR-frame interval (or I-frame interval for Xvid). No matter what the encoding software, you should be able to configure the codec, and its options should be the same from program to program. But that issue is pretty complicated for a beginner. You may want to make mention of it, and go into detail in a separate guide.

Also, the framerate must be 24fps or higher (23.976 is close enough).