Another Youtube HD format update

eVoke wrote on 9/26/2009, 1:50 PM

Got an email from my friend who is a Youtube partner and he told me that Youtube is upgrading their HD format to support 1920x1080.
Sure enough!! After checking some of my clips that I've loaded using the 1280x720 format I'm now getting black bars on the sides when viewed in HD.
After some experimenting he's found that exporting to 1920x960 gives a better image quality.

Link to his clip -

Comments

InterceptPoint wrote on 9/26/2009, 2:33 PM

This is very good news. Thanks for posting. Have a look at this one (and look at it full screen - simply amazing:

farss wrote on 9/26/2009, 3:18 PM

Great so if 1920x960 works best should we all start shooting Cinemascope?

The video above plays out beautifully on my not over the top office PC. I tried one of my videos which was real footage not CGI and even after it was downloaded it played back at a couple of fps. Worst of all the non HD playout looks softer than before. I wish YouTube were a bit more forthright in revealing their technical specs so we could test how content will lokk before we upload it and wait for them to encode it.

Bob.

PeterWright wrote on 9/26/2009, 6:58 PM

Where does Youtube specify HD preferred settings?

I know they've been doing HD for a while, but under "Best Formats for Uploading" it says:

YouTube can accept almost any video format for upload, but for most users we have found the following settings give the best results.
Video Format: H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 preferred
Aspect Ratio: Native aspect ratio without letterboxing (examples: 4:3, 16:9)
Resolution: 640x360 (16:9) or 480x360 (4:3) recommended
Audio Format: MP3 or AAC preferred
Frames per second: 30
Maximum length: 10 minutes (we recommend 2-3 minutes)
Maximum file size: 1 GB

eVoke wrote on 9/26/2009, 9:48 PM

@ PeterWright -
Try this link
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=132460

InterceptPoint wrote on 9/27/2009, 5:07 AM

Here is an interesting tutorial showing how to use the Ajax x246 encoder and Vegas to do a 1920x960 video for YouTube.

PeterWright wrote on 9/27/2009, 7:39 AM

Thanks eVoke - that's very helpful.

Cliff Etzel wrote on 9/28/2009, 8:39 AM

just wish the encoder could be downloaded - the site is offline at the present time

Cliff Etzel
Videographer : Producer : Web Designer
bluprojekt

Yarin VooDoo wrote on 9/28/2009, 9:27 AM

Ciao,

Try here: http://h264.tweevo.com/

Ciao

musicvid10 wrote on 9/28/2009, 9:38 AM

An alternate download link here: http://rapidshare.com/files/284420772/Easy_h264.rar

This looks like another ffmpeg front end with a few poorly named presets and no configurability, mainly for putting gaming clips on YouTube. Limited appeal, to say the least. There are better x264 frontends out there. And no, it does not install as a Vegas codec. You have to render to Uncompressed AVI first.

fldave wrote on 9/28/2009, 10:11 AM

Can it be frame served to the encoder?

musicvid10 wrote on 9/28/2009, 10:58 AM

I don't think Debugmode ever frame served directly to FFMPEG -- through VirtualDub or AviSynth, but not directly.