OT: Youtube 1080 Performance

bigrock wrote on 1/30/2010, 12:16 PM

I would like to get some feedback on YouTube 1080P performance from various parts of the world. I have uploaded a video from a true 1080P source and YouTube has encoded files at the various resolutions including 720P and 1080P. I would like to get some feed back on whether you can watch the 720P and 1080p feeds reliably in your corner of the world.

Please post back where you are, and what type of Internet connection you are using. By using this link as a standard reference so we are all testing the same thing we should get some usefull and meaningful information as to true YouTube performance. Click through to YouTube to be able select from different resolutions (click on the YouTube symbol).

Comments

xberk wrote on 1/30/2010, 1:55 PM

Plays smooth for me at 1080p -- looks about the same at 720p. Using Time Warner Cable Roadrunner Turbo (15 mps) here in LA area.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 1/30/2010, 3:04 PM

i won't look at the video for a simple reason:
ever since youtube upgraded to HD res ALL videos stutter for me, from old ones to 1080p ones. They won't even stream fast enough any more (it's not my connection: vimeo, for example, still works fine).

A. Grandt wrote on 1/30/2010, 4:49 PM

The only difference between 720 and 1080 I see is a slight blurring in 1080 vs. 720. I also see the tell tale sight of the fact that YouTube 1080p is not 1080p, but rather 1080i with half the frames thrown out, effectively making it 1920x540p

Look at the vertical pixelation around the texts.

And yes, I have made test uploads in 1920x1080p specifically to test this phenomenon.

NickHope wrote on 1/30/2010, 10:02 PM

I'm on a 3mbps connection in Phuket, Thailand. This costs me around USD33 per month. The vast majority of people in Thailand would not have a connection as fast as mine.

Lots of pausing/buffering as it loads both the 1080p and 720p versions, but 480p keeps up no problem. I would be patient with the HD versions if it was something I really wanted to watch.

Are you wondering which version to embed?

farss wrote on 1/30/2010, 10:55 PM

Both 720 and 1080p require me to wait for it to load, 720p takes around 5 minutes, 1080p considerably longer. I also find even when downloaded a lot of Joe Average's PC cannot playout 720p smoothly. I'm on a 5Mbps cable connection.

Watching the 1080p on a 24" monitor reveals a lot of noise that's led to pretty bad compression artifacts, probably a good idea to do something about that in the future.

Bob.

ps. In Sydney, Australia,

OdieInAz wrote on 1/30/2010, 11:31 PM

720p plays well for me. 1080p stutters badly - but not a YouTube problem, as the RedBufferBar gets longer. My MacBook Core Duo can't handle 1080p. Speakeasy.net says I'm getting 5.2 Mbps on a cable modem.

bigrock wrote on 1/30/2010, 11:47 PM

Compression artifacts are a fact of life with YT on full screen. It was a 1.5GB file that was uploaded to them which they reduced to a few tens of megs, that's not going to be without some damage that will be more apparent on a full screen.

bigrock wrote on 1/30/2010, 11:51 PM

I am not wondering which version to embed, more trying to do an eval of YouTube performance from a global perspective. I guess should mention I am in Calgary, Canada and when using it at 720P it is usually smooth but at 1080P I see a great deal of stuttering. This is the same whether I am on 19.2 meg ADSL, 3.0 meg ADSL, or 10 Meg Cable internet service.

A. Grandt wrote on 1/31/2010, 1:12 AM

I would stay with 720p, it seems to give the best result at the moment.
Maybe 1080p will become acceptable later when YT figures out how to re-encode 1080p to better give a useful balance between quality and size, as it is they seem to compress it a bit too hard.

ritsmer wrote on 1/31/2010, 1:23 AM

From Copenhagen, Denmark:

No stuttering at all (both 720 and 1080).
From what I get through here, however, I do not get the impression of 720 (and by far not 1080) - I mean compared to raw video from my own cameras.

Video in 1080 starts after some 2 secs of buffering.

My connection is a guaranteed 8 Mbps and when I test against speakeasy.net (Seattle and NY) I get some 7 Mbps - here, across the Atlantics.

farss wrote on 1/31/2010, 1:27 AM

What you're saying is largely true. The trick is to shoot your video so it'll "fit" into the available bandwidth. Noise is your #1 enemy. Ligthing goes a lot way to reducing noise, even with a very cheap camera. Fill as much of the frame as possible with colors that create the least noise. Use dayligth light sources, crunch blacks, use CK'ed in backgrounds. Look at your waveform monitor, you can see the noise there pretty easily.
You've got to look at your video the way the encoder does.

Bob.

Bob.

DGates wrote on 1/31/2010, 3:12 AM

Looks good and played flawlessly for me in central California on high speed DSL.

bsuratt wrote on 1/31/2010, 5:55 AM

Video is fine at 1080p or 720p on a FIOS 20/5 connection. No pauses or stutter. Audio dropped in quiet places; sounded like an overly aggressive noise gate. Is YT playing with audio bandwidth?
Tampa Bay Florida, USA

TeetimeNC wrote on 1/31/2010, 6:47 AM

I'm on 8mbps roadrunner in Raleigh, NC. My 5 year old laptop won't even play it at 360p. My video pc with nice graphic card plays the 1080p smoothly.

Jerry

bigrock wrote on 2/1/2010, 1:06 AM

You said "Look at your waveform monitor, you can see the noise there pretty easily."

I agree however the point of this thread is can YouTube serve up 1080P globally reliably at this time? The actual content is irrelevant.

bigrock wrote on 2/6/2010, 11:56 AM

A few groups participated in this test and the unscientific conclusion is that YouTube/Internet 1080HD performance is inconsistent. Sometimes it works and sometimes it stutters. Some people think their machine may be too slow to handle the video. That is very easy to test: allow the video to stutter all the way through and then hit replay, the video will be replayed from cache, if it still stutters it's your machine, if it plays smoothly it's either your internet service or YouTube. Your Internet service probably needs to be 3.0mbs or above to play 1080 reliably. I would still encode for 1080P now as I am sure YouTube will improve over time. They have been offering the 1080 service for only a couple months now so it is still very early in this new game.

Also I know a number of you have been using my Streaming Samples for comparison purposes. To allow you to compare apples to apples I have uploaded the same clip to YouTube there in all 4 resolutions including 1080P (the music is different, video is identical)