The new YouTube HD format?

farss wrote on 10/30/2009, 4:50 PM

Based on some input from here I tried uploading a video at 1920x960. Result is here:

I quite like the Univisium 2:1 AR for stage shows. It'd be better without the black border or maybe not. At least it avoids having the player's controls over the bottom of the image.

Bob.

Comments

DGates wrote on 10/30/2009, 5:10 PM

I'd say that looks pretty good, Bob.

When you mention Univisium, I had to look it up because I hadn't heard of it, but it seems to pertain to film camera ratios. Explain what you mean.

Coursedesign wrote on 10/30/2009, 5:33 PM

AR=Aspect Ratio (width:height).

I like this AR too, it is more like how humans see the world.

Odd with the black bars top and bottom, at least it doesn't disturb too much. Seems to have about 1080 lines total, could that have anything to do with it?

I loved the dance and music in the first piece, very well performed too!

farss wrote on 10/30/2009, 6:40 PM

"Explain what you mean"

The 2:1 AR can as you've no doubt read be cheaply shot on film. The RedOne also shoots in that AR. Why not just call it 2:1, well it does have a name and the name does relate to the person who first proposed it. Just seems fair. It can also be less confusing.
"Widescreen" is oftenly referred to as 16:9 and yet it oftenly isn't exactly 16:9. The same goes for "Cinemascope".

Bob.

DGates wrote on 10/30/2009, 9:37 PM

Thanks for the info.

NickHope wrote on 10/31/2009, 12:14 AM

Bob, here this plays with black bars top and bottom AND at the sides. Is that what you wanted? What res did you upload and did you letterbox or pillarbox it manually?

A. Grandt wrote on 10/31/2009, 1:54 AM

For a short while about a month ago YouTube indeed DID have a 2:1 player format on the windowed player, they changed that back to 16:9, and added the permanent black bars on the sides. Going full screen will use the full screen width.

I did some testing back then, and found that if the video exceeded the 1280x720 frame on either side, they would resize the video, so 1920x960 was actually not a good idea, 1280x640 worked though, and still do but now you get the letterboxing on the player.

My tests:
1280x720:

1280x640:

1920x960:

I also made a 1440x720, to see if the limiting factor was 720 lines:

There is a link to the raw mp4 files in the 1280x720 versions video description.

farss wrote on 10/31/2009, 7:44 AM

Thanks for your hard work and for posting the results.
I had indeed encode to 1920x960 mp4, no bars anywhere and I expected it to playout of YouTube as such. As you can see it didn't so it looks like back to 16:9, BORING!

Only joking, kind of, but it is a bit annoying when they keep changing the game plan and seem reluctant to even tell us what they are doing. At least Vimeo seem consistant and state to some extent what their encoders want as the native format.

Bob.