How to improve these settings for YouTube Render?

will-3 wrote on 8/12/2007, 6:16 AM

I just did my first YouTube project...
"Let's Play Drums" First Drum Solo in 27 years
Please review it at...

I would appriceate any comments and suggestions on how to improve the video quality on YouTube.

We are still using Vegas 5.0 and used the 13 steps & settings below... as taken from the tutorial at...

1 - Click File | Render As
2 - Select - Render as a wmv file
3 - Click Template & select 1 mbps
4 - Then select 'custom' to the right
5 - Then select "video Rendering Quality" as 'Best'
6 - Then click 'Audio' tab at bottom and click on 'Atributes'
7 - and select 128 kbps 44 khz
8- Next click on the 'Video' tab at the bottom
9 - and make sure 'frame rate' is set to 30
10- and image size is set to 'Animation 320 x 240'
11- Video Smoothness at bottom should be set to 100 for the sharpest
12- bit rate should be at 1M = best for Youtube
13- Save & it will render

We need to make the software we have now work as good as we can as we can't upgrade to the new Vegas right now.

Thanks for any comments or suggestions.

Comments

Per1 wrote on 8/12/2007, 9:08 AM

Looks OK.
There is a tutorial on YouTube how to optimize output in Vegas for Youtube, but I think it's the settings you have. Possibly 192 kbps instead of 128, but I'm not sure.

I usually use 25 fps (since I record in PAL).

IRH wrote on 8/12/2007, 9:42 AM

Your video looks much better than anything I've ever been able to get; I'm not sure I'd change a thing. I use Vegas MS Platinum 8 (wrong forum, I know, but principles should be identical), and use EXACTLY the same settings as you have listed. They derive, I believe, from this tutorial here:

My videos don't look nearly as good as yours, or the one linked above, or various others I've encountered that have indicated that they use the same settings but that nonetheless look pristine.

Mine are here: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=IRH999

My suspicion is that mine look worse because they are primarily outdoor, moving shots, with a lot of moving detail to process. However, I still have it in my mind that Youtube's flash converter has a built-in process that says - "Oh, this one's from Ian. Put it through the bad converter".

Good luck,
Ian.

Per1 wrote on 8/12/2007, 4:53 PM

Will,
The video looks ok and I think the settings are pretty OK.
The "pixelation" around the symbals(?) and yourself, most noticeable in dark areas, I cannot explain. I don't think it's the rendering. Can it be the camera? This is the only thing that "disturbs" me. I haven't recorded against black background so I can't say for sure what it is. The videos I have at YouTube with my "YouTube" setting in Vegas show no such "effects".
PS. I'm using Vegas 7 - don't know if it's better at rendering "black areas".

Edit: I checked my YouTube-videos. Some small compression artifacts in the black areas when looked at carefully. Black seems to be difficult to represent. But since no outcries from viewers it's prob. acceptable by (my) viewers ;)

farss wrote on 8/12/2007, 8:30 PM

Part of the problem with the blacks could be that that's where you'll have the most noise. You could try crushing the blacks to kill it a bit and see if that improves matters or else use Mike Crash's dynamic noise reduction FX.

Bob.