Need a video converter like youtube's

[omidsolo]

Howdy,
I always use YouTube to upload my .m2ts BluRay short video files just to be encoded and download back in 1080 and 720 resolutions.
Because YouTube has a great encoder for both 1080 and 720 resolutions from .m2ts files with smallest file size.
But what if there's no YouTube?
What's the best software based encoder with same quality and size?

Here's one sample mp4 file encoded by YouTube from .m2ts:

General
Complete name : D:\Niloofar.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42
File size : 27.3 MiB
Duration : 2mn 42s
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 1 415 Kbps
Encoded date : UTC 2014-04-21 22:55:55
Tagged date : UTC 2014-04-21 22:55:55
gsst : 0
gstd : 162098
gssd : B4A7DD541HH1398226648260277
gshh : r1---sn-o097zues.c.youtube.com

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 1 frame
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 2mn 42s
Bit rate : 1 221 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 7 554 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 25.000 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.053
Stream size : 23.6 MiB (86%)
Tagged date : UTC 2014-04-21 22:55:58

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 2mn 42s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 192 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 201 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 3.71 MiB (14%)
Title : IsoMedia File Produced by Google, 5-11-2011
Encoded date : UTC 2014-04-21 22:55:57
Tagged date : UTC 2014-04-21 22:55:58

[El Heggunte]

Hybrid, RipBot264, MeGUI, among many others:

https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/video-encoders

Because YouTube has a GREAT encoder for both 1080 and 720 resolutions from .m2ts files with smallest file size.

Don't ever let manono read that

[newpball]

Because YouTube has a great encoder for both 1080 and 720 resolutions from .m2ts files with smallest file size.

The encoder may be good but the bitrate is very bad.

[LigH.de]

Always the same meaningless question... what's the one and only absolute best? If there were a best, there would be no others.


YouTube most probably uses something based on ffmpeg. And that's not at all "the best converter" in general for all kinds of material and purposes. It is a generic, multi-purpose converter.

For every existing video clip there may be a different "best" encoder – as long as you take your time to find their optimal configuration for each clip. A fully automatical conversion, instead, is certainly not the best.

And on top, YouTube does not even configure its converter for highest possible efficiency, rather for a good compromise between conversion time and streamability.

[manono]

Don't ever let manono read that

Hehe, I chuckled when reading that. Yes, they ruin what were once good videos before they got their grubby paws on them. But as newpball mentioned, the main problem is the bitrates used. If the OP really wants to make videos of the same quality as YouTube, he just has to encode using the same bitrates YouTube uses for the respective resolutions.

For better results he could use one of the x264 front ends you mentioned. And he could switch to CRF encoding. The resulting sizes could vary a lot from using bitrate-based 2-pass encoding, but the quality would be much more even. For example, a guy just reading the news might look decent with YouTube's low bitrate encoding, where a motorcycle rider racing through a forest looks very bad.

[jagabo]

Youtube said that they suppot VP9

I think they only show up in Chrome for now.

[omidsolo]

Interesting, I've downloaded some encoders from above links and they failed to run or caused some exception, I'll post snapshots later.

[LigH.de]

Not only in Chrome. You can also watch WebM videos in YouTube if you force the HTML5 mode for the YouTube site. But that makes only sense if the browser supports WebM with VPx video.

A DASH supporting tool or add-on (like "Complete YouTube Saver" for Firefox) can also save them.

[LigH.de]

Bad advice. Google will probably first list some bait software with spyware bundles or evil behaviour (messing up your system interna, like SUPER or Format Factory); VideoHelp download pages include alerts for a good reason.

There is really free, powerful and quality oriented software which will also avoid a too deep system integration. But it may take a little more efforts to get to know them to profit from their advantages.