Best video format for YouTube?

[davidjon54]

I just uploaded a couple of small videos to YouTube and the quality was not as good as I was hoping. The videos were rendered as wmv 11 512 kb. I tried one of the same videos rendered as wmv 11 8 mbps and it looked even worse. Any suggestions for the best looking video format? P.S. Is wmv interlaced?

[MOVIEGEEK]

Anytime you upload to YouTube they convert the video to low bitrate Flash which is a poor quality format. My suggestion is to use 640x480p for SD and 1280x720p for HD, any bitrate over 8Mbps is overkill. I have had good results with WMV9(VC-1) but I get better results using MOV(MPEG-4).
WMV is usually progressive.

Other factors can be the encoder used and the quality of the source video.

[subc]

Can you post a link to the WMV 11 that you encoded? and also a link to what youtube encodes from that file?

Like movegeek, I've had very decent results using WMV9(VC-1), and also you should be aware of a few things:

First: As son as you upload a video file and depending on the server load, youtube first encodes a very low quality video file of your video, just so it's up and ready to be seen. Then, it starts encoding (automatically, the user has no control over this) a better 360p quality of the video, then a 480p, then a 720p and 1080p (if you uploaded HD video), and these options appear overtime.. like I said, depending on the server load.

[davidjon54]

Thanks for the help. It is HD at least before the render process? Here is a link to the video on YouTube.
2010 Turkey video address
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1Tj_ZuFHdk

I'm not sure of the difference between the two links. encoded and youtube encoded

It's acually a really clear video when I watch the rendered files on my computer.

I didn't know if got better over time. Maybe the 8mbps would have been ok.. I watched it right after it uploaded and it wasn't very good. I'll also try the mpeg 4 route.

[davidjon54]

Hey Moviegeek... the .mov format is listed behind quicktime. Is it mpeg4 also? I think mpeg4 is listed after main concepts .avc anyway... I did a render as avc mpeg4 and am in the process of uploading it.
P.S. It just finished and it looks really blochy. It even looks that way when I watch the rener on the computer. Going to try the .mov next.

[MOVIEGEEK]

MOV is a container(like AVI) and you can use different codecs with it, I prefer MPEG-4.
YouTube also recommends MPEG-4: http://www.youtube.com/t/howto_makevideo

[davidjon54]

I tried the quicktime and the audio came out garbled. Of course this was before I saw your post. I did try the wmv ll @ 3mbps and I think the results are pretty good. Thank you for the help. At least I think these are in the right order. P.S. I did try the mpeg 2 but the files was huge for only 3 minutes of video so I didn't upload it.


Update.... I ended up going with wmv 11 4.8mbps 24 HD
The files were not too big but the quality is pretty good.
subc was right about the delay. It got better over time.

Thanks Moviegeek and subc.

[True Colors]

I didn't know if got better over time. Maybe the 8mbps would have been ok.. I watched it right after it uploaded and it wasn't very good.

You already beat me to the punch.

When you very first upload a video to Youtube it looks terrible. Depending on the size of the file, you have to wait for further processing for it to look better.

For me personally I like to upload videos to youtube at night before I go to bed and then check them the next morning.

TC