Best quality AUDIO for Youtube - what settings do you use?

[Bansaw]

I heard that if you render straight out to FLV then upload it to Youtube, Youtube will not convert the Stereo audio to Mono lower quality. It will retain exactly the same audio settings as you rendered out.

However, if you use MP4 or something else, it will render it down to Mono lower quality.

I want to make sure my audio is Stereo at least 256K MP3.

Any comments?

[poisondeathray]

I think everything gets converted to AAC now ~96-128K stereo (when stereo audio is uploaded)

The old hack used to be <500Kb/s FLV wouldn't get re-encoded. So people would use blank video and high bitrate audio. This definitely doesn't work anymore

[Lance007]

I think poisondeathray is making a point there because, you can't select the option to fix the audio quality

[manono]

That's right. They'll just reencode it anyway to whatever audio they use for whatever resolution video it's for. So you'll have different quality audios (all reencoded) depending on whether the video version is 240p, 360p, 480p, 720p, or 1080p. I just send them high quality MP3 but you might include WAV audio with your uploads for the very best final quality. Or some sort of high bitrate AAC audio if making MP4s. It is true that the lower resolution videos use Mono audio. I forget where it begins to be stereo, 480P maybe? Shouldn't be hard to figure out. Download your (or other people's) videos at the different resolutions and check.

I want to make sure my audio is Stereo at least 256K MP3.

Ain't gonna happen. For one thing they don't use MP3. For another, I think only the Hi-Def videos use bitrates even approaching that quality. But again, I'm not positive because I don't check for those kinds of things.

[greymalkin]

it would be nice if youtube released some sort of encoder client software that would encode to their exact specifications and tag the video with some metadata to let their servers know to "leave this one alone". I would think it would cut down on the amount of processing they have to do on their end. It's true most people probably wouldn't use it but it would be nice for those who would like to perfect their video before uploading and tossing it to the wind