properly resizing pal dvd to 480p with lanczos

[codemaster]

I have a clip created with a DVD camcorder. The clip is interlaced, and it's resolution is 720 x 576. It's aspect ratio is 16:9.

I want to upload the clip to youtube. But first I have to deinterlace it and resize it to 854 x 480 px.

I chose to resize it with avisynth+ and lanczos. But I don't know which of the following two options has the highest quality.

Option 1 is:

LanczosResize(854, 480)

And option 2 is:

LanczosResize(1024, 576)
LanczosResize(854, 480)

Does option 2 retain more detail from the source, compared to option 1? Or both options retain the same amount of detail, but option 2 is lower quality because image was resized twice?

[poisondeathray]

Double rate deinterlace and upscale to 1280x720p50 or greater for youtube . SD resolution does not get 50p/60p treatment on YT . The minimum height is 720 to get 50p/60p treatment. ie. If you use SD you lose 1/2 the frames and smoothness on YT .

If it wasn't YT, to answer the other question, double resizing does not make much difference and is technically worse - but you can test it yourself

[codemaster]

Ok, I'll do 576i to 720p50 in avisynth+, because this looks too jerky at 25 fps anyway.

[dellsam34]

If Youtube is the target resize to 1440x1080, You get less compression artifacts if it's flagged HD, YT no longer consider 720p as HD, Check my YT channel I did demonstration tests.

[codemaster]

I will not be using lanczos anymore to upscale SD to 720p. After deinterlacing, I'll use nnedi3_rpow2 to upscale to 1440x1152. Then I'll use spline36 to downscale to 720p, because 720p is the minimum required for youtube to not convert 50 fps to 25 fps. But I won't upscale SD to 1080p, even if youtube encodes with less artifacts.

[Skiller]

The biggest jump in quality is from 480p (limited to 30fps max) to 720p anyways.

The next big jump is 1440p but that means the files to upload are huge. Requires a very fast connection if you don't want to bottleneck your internet access for the entire day.

[Bwaak]

One may be tempted to go 1080 because YT does not label 720 videos as HD anymore, so to a casual viewer this may be a signal of "crappy old SD".

[Alwyn]

The next big jump is 1440p but that means the files to upload are huge.

Not necessarily. YT doesn't differentiate with bitrate. I often upload 1920x1440 4:3 at only 6000kbps so that I get VP9 encoding. If the files are expected to be viewed on smaller screens, the bitrate isn't as important.

[Skiller]

Yes correct, but I was assuming using CRF mode in x264, a video upscaled to 1440p rather than 720p would be much larger.

One may be tempted to go 1080 because YT does not label 720 videos as HD anymore, so to a casual viewer this may be a signal of "crappy old SD".

Well if 720p is the highest available they would watch in 720p anyways, wouldn't they?

Why is YouTube's tiny "HD" logo beneath the resolution option so important?

[manono]

I often upload 1920x1440 4:3 at only 6000kbps so that I get VP9 encoding.

I have VP9 video encoding at 640x480 standard def. Maybe everyone does, but I wouldn't know for sure:

[codemaster]

Maybe they encode to h.264 and vp9 if the clip exceeds a certain number of views during a certain period of time, and clips below that threshold don't get vp9 and higher bitrate and less artifacts. Or will get vp9, but not now, but much later. But to upscale SD to 1080p just to get vp9, is too much upscaling and it's not worth it. Upscaling should not be too much, it should be as less as possible.

[Bwaak]

Well if 720p is the highest available they would watch in 720p anyways, wouldn't they?

Not necessarily.

Why is YouTube's tiny "HD" logo beneath the resolution option so important?

Because if it is not HD, or if it has not been remastered to HD using super-duper AI, it is not worth watching, this is what some people think.

[Skiller]

I get the idea.



Just checked a few videos, some with lots, some with only 1000 or so views, and all of them play in VP9 at any resolution I chose, even at 144p. The only exceptions I could find are older videos (3 years old for example), they play in AVC for me.

[manono]

Maybe they encode to h.264 and vp9 if the clip exceeds a certain number of views during a certain period of time

I made public a video just 5 hours ago. It has only 600 views and it's VP9 also.

I checked my oldest from 9 years ago with 700,000 views and it's AVC.

Because if it is not HD, or if it has not been remastered to HD using super-duper AI, it is not worth watching, this is what some people think.

Nonsense, of course. In my own genre almost all competing channels upscale SD videos to Hi-Def and they look way way worse than my SD videos do.

[Alwyn]

I made public a video just 5 hours ago. It has only 600 views and it's VP9 also.

What height was the video?

I uploaded a 1440x1080 video yesterday. YT encoded it as AVC. 24 hours later, it is still AVC (with no views). If I upload a 1920x1440 video, YT will immediately encode it in VP9.

So it seems that if you are in the good books with YT (popular channel, Manono 600 hits in 5 hours! Impressive ), you'll get VP9 at lower resolutions than 1440. If you're an unpopular also-ran like me, you need to upload 1440 or greater to get it.

Nonsense, of course.

In their defence, they said "this is what some people think".

Just checked a few videos, some with lots, some with only 1000 or so views, and all of them play in VP9 at any resolution I chose, even at 144p

If your video meets the VP9 criteria, all the variants of that video will be be in VP9, regardless of their size.

[manono]

What height was the video?

Except for a couple of Hi-Def videos I have, they're all 640x480. I've worked on a few VCDs and also upscale them to 640x480.

In their defence, they said "this is what some people think".

Yes, I included that part in my quotation. And it's still nonsense. Much more important is if you know what you're doing. I upload public domain films after doing a lot of improvement on them. Other don't. Rather they create "widescreen" films from "fullscreen" sources. They upscale them to HD from SD (often VHS) sources, not knowing how to do it properly. And they deface them with ugly logos. I do get people from time to time asking me to upscale my uploads to HD. I either ignore them or patiently explain that HD resolution doesn't mean HD detail.

[Alwyn]

Except for a couple of Hi-Def videos I have, they're all 640x480. I've worked on a few VCDs and also upscale them to 640x480.

You're obviously more popular than me!

[Bwaak]

I upload public domain films after doing a lot of improvement on them. ... I do get people from time to time asking me to upscale my uploads to HD. I either ignore them or patiently explain that HD resolution doesn't mean HD detail.

If you upload videos, then upscaling to HD (720p is HD no matter what Youtube wants people to think) unlocks 50p/60p. If you upload movies, then even decent 8-mm footage can benefit from 720p or even 1080p, not to mention 16-mm or 35-mm.

OTOH, if you upload movies off VHS cassettes, then I can see the reason to keep them at 480p24 after detelecining. Can you share the link to your channel?

Logmar S8 Camera & Kodak Vision 3 50D Super 8 - 2K Scan
DIY 16mm Film to 4K Digital Transfer System | Part 3
San Francisco summer 1992 in HD (Hi8)

[Skiller]

@ manono
But what about the better bitrate ratio for 720p and up? Is this no longer the case with VP9?
Yes, the upscaling does not improve the quality, but the better bitrate to size ratio for 720p and up does (or used to).

[manono]

If you upload videos, then upscaling to HD (720p is HD no matter what Youtube wants people to think) unlocks 50p/60p.

I have no interest in 50/60p. As I mentioned, these are films. I do see people bragging about 50 or 60p for films, but they usually don't know what they're talking about. They just create a bunch of duplicate frames.

If you upload movies, then even decent 8-mm footage can benefit from 720p or even 1080p, not to mention 16-mm or 35-mm.

Yeah, I see pdr mention that from time to time. Doesn't interest me. Do the bits per pixel increase? You have to understand that most films from DVDs or even uploaded on streaming sites in my genre are made from VHS tapes originally.

Can you share the link to your channel?

I'll pass.

@ manono
The bitrate is better, yes.
But what about the better bitrate ratio for 720p and up?

I don't know. 960x720 has 2.25 the number of pixels of 640x480. Is the bitrate given to them by YouTube 2.25 times or more greater? I don't know.

[Skiller]

But compression does not scale like a linear function. For one thing, SD upscaled to 720p (and up) has the benefit of being blurrier than native HD and thus is easier to compress for the given fixed bitrate YouTube assigns.
What I can say is that, on YouTube, SD upscaled to 720p (and up) looks slightly better, meaning it has less compression artifacts compared to 480p (completely ignoring 50p/60p here which I understand is of no meaning for film sources).

[manono]

What I can say is that, on YouTube, SD upscaled to 720p (and up) looks slightly better, meaning it has less compression artifacts compared to 480p).

I have no interest in upscaling to hi-def unless I have hi-def sources, which is hardly ever. It takes more work time, more computer time, the sizes are larger and take even more time to upload, when my upload sizes are already averaging 2 GB. I'm already averaging more than 40 hours of work per film, more with subtitles (which is most of the time) and as I mentioned already, most of these sources are ultimately VCR tape sources.

I'm not sure I accept that the compression doesn't scale with the resolution chosen, but even if it doesn'i, I still have no interest in doing it.

I appreciate the advice.