Quality on youtub terrible

[TempleFever]

Hey everyone! I hope everything is well.

This is my first post, and my knowlegde is still very limited so please be kind in case I say something stupid

Here's my issue:

I am using a Sony HDR-CX115E and am using FCP7.
In order to load my videos into FCP, I used Log and capture. Once they were uploaded, I imported them into my new FCP project.
Now when trying to put sequences into my timeline, I got the following message: "For best performance your sequence and external video should be set to the format of the clips you are editing. Change sequence settings to match clip settings?"

Not exactly knowing what this meant, I pressed Yes, trusting FCP. But once I did so my videos became deformed (way too narrow).
So I created a new project, and pressed "No", when the same message appeared.

I first did a trial video in order to test it on youtube, using the settings that were recommended by a few articles and tutorials I had followed on Youtube. The quality is not as good as it could be, as I filmed all my sequences in HD (check the test video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWdSwsZb2eM)

Do you think that the problem comes from the "change sequence settings to match clip settings" part, from something else?

In advance, Thanks a lot for your help!

Max

[Hoser Rob]

Never tried fcp myself. Does it give you options for resolution for download?

Many, many youtube videos are terrible quality. There's not a lot you can do with that.

I've dl'ed stuff from youtube using the video downloadhelper firefox plugin. It'll give you options for resolution & format. Pick the highest res and don't convert. Then you can import the file into whatever.

I'm no expert on aspect ratio (which is what your "way too narrow" video problem sounds like. But it may be that your editor sets up a project first and then expects the video resolution to match the project settings.

[manono]

It looks about like typical YouTube reencoded videos to me. Did it look good to you when you uploaded it? As maybe you don't know, YouTube reencodes everything it touches. It may be my imagination, but it looks to me like frames are missing and it plays in a jerky kind of fast-slow-fast-slow motion. It's 29.97fps. You didn't, by chance, create or upload a 50fps video, did you? If you don't know, post the text file from MediaInfo. The aspect ratio looks fine to me.

[aedipuss]

the cx115e cam is most likely a pal model as the e at the end indicates "european". so i'd guess you're right manono the cam video is pal and fcp converted to ntsc.

[budwzr]

Yeah, Manono's right.

When you upload to YT, you need to render the file to YT specs, or else they will do it for you by brute force automation.

Also, the camera work is very bad.

[TempleFever]

Hey guys,

Thanks to you all for your kind answers.

Manono, yeah the quality was really good before I uploaded it on Youtube. I don't expect it to be as good on Youtube of course, but better than how it is right now. What's the easiest way to know if my video is a 50fps?

Budwzr, how do I render the file to YT specs exactly? I don't really know what those are.

Again, I'm really new to all of this, so I don't clearly understand everything that is discussed here. Thank you for your patience!

[manono]

What's the easiest way to know if my video is a 50fps?

There are lots of ways. Your player can probably tell you. Or you can open it in MediaInfo (as I've already mentioned).

If it's really 50fps do it over again, this time removing every other frame to make it 25fps.

[TempleFever]

Cool Thank you! I will try that!

[budwzr]

Budwzr, how do I render the file to YT specs exactly? I don't really know what those are.

Look in the YT help. http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1722171&topic=2888648&ctx=topic