YouTube Uploading Qualities From a SD File to 480p vs 720p vs 1080p

[dellsam34]

I have tested this before with normal videos and came to a conclusion that YouTube's algorithms have different compression levels for 480, 720 and 1080 but some people are skeptical about if there is any difference in compression at all between 720 and 1080 other than resolution, some other argued that there is no difference between 480 and 720. I was doing a TBC stress test and the file I was using (TV static) was a perfect candidate to prove my previous findings.

Note: The claim is not that a SD file magically turns into HD. No, what is being discussed here is that a SD video may escape YouTube's harsh compression if resized to HD and can still look close to the original SD file.

The original file is a video capture from a TV tuner in a VCR, captured at 720x480 UYV 4:2:2 lossless AVI, I snipped 30 seconds from it using vdub2 then de-interlaced with QTGMC 59.94 fps in the faster mode, from this final almost lossless file I made 3 versions based on 3 resolutions, so resized the exact same file from 720x480 to 640x480, 960x720 and 1440x1080, While still in the almost lossless state I uploaded the 3 files to YouTube, 480p, 720p and 1080p, the 1080 version took an extra step during the upload process called HD processing, this is an initial indication that the compression is different for 1080, Here is the original captured file.

After the 3 files have been successfully uploaded to YouTube I downloaded them back to my hard drive to examine them, Both 720p and 1080p retained 59.94 fps, 480p has been downgraded 29.97 fps, Here they are:
480p, 720p and 1080p.

Here is 3 frame grabs from the downloaded videos: