OK, sounds like just what I am looking for. As a beginner, the things discussed in that video would be most helpful to me.

Right now, I am concentrating on attempting to upload the clips I have...but I would like to learn how to do it better.

Regarding my original issue, I have found that one needs to renderto higher than 640x480 in order to get the high quality version of the video to play in full screen. I'm experimenting now with AVI/WMV/MP4 and different resolutions.

Thanks for the reply and disclosure, JohnnyRoy, appreciated.

Joe

I guess I'm rather impatient!

Not receiving any answers to my queries (other than JR's response, which is definitely appreciated and reminds me that, ultimately, SOURCE is everything...)

I decided to do some experimentation on my own and share some of my discoveries here.

The most important and surprising thing I discovered is that the recommended 640x480 resolution does NOT give the best results on YouTube for HD source. Far superior results can be obtained by using higher resolutions. I'm still not sure what the optimum resolution is, so I'll hold off on any recommendations until I have a definitive answer.

I also found that the two best types to use are WMV and Sony AAC. Again, one may be better than the other, once I find the right combination of all other variables.

Finally, I find that be increasing the bitrate to just below the YouTube maximum, I get better quality. I also suspect that as YouTube improves, it would be prudent for us to upload the highest quality source that we can. This may be an incorrect assumption, but I will act as if it is true until shown otherwise.

Finally, I'd really like to converse with others who are interested in Youtube videos and web videos in general. I would prefer to converse here as I think it is of general interest to all, but if not, I'd be glad to discuss it in private email.

Looking foward to learning and sharing more...

Joe

Hi Joe,

I am also interested in knowing how to get better results when uploading videos to YouTube, Veoh, etc. So far I have found that the same video uploaded to both YouTube and Veoh will end up looking better on Veoh. I guess that means they are doing something different with the encoding on Veoh than on YouTube.

I've seen a lot of different recommendations for how to get the best results on YouTube, but, like you, I'm not really getting the results I would expect.

I am shooting HDV with a Canon XH-A1 and my original video looks beautiful.

Rick

Rick,

I'm finding that by setting your rendered output to WMV with a everything in the highest quality, 1280x720 and your bitrate as high as you can without going over the YouTube file size restriction, you should get a pretty good video on YouTube. I haven't used Veoh, yet, but with Vimeo, I find that I typically get much better results.

What settings are you currently using?

Joe

I assume you have done a simple Google search:

Google search for "vegas youtube tutorial upload OR render"

Lots of great tutorials and suggestions, many of them similar to what you are discovering on your own. For instance:






I could go on, but you can search the above Google results yourself.

Yes, thanks, I have seen the two videos you referenced as well as others. All of them have been most useful!

The problem I kept running into was that people were using resolutions too small. This resulted in not taking advantage of filling up the entire screen.

In any case, I'm enjoying learning from others and discovering things on my own. I appreciate your help.

Best,

Joe

Unless your video contains lots of motion, it has been my experience that you get the best results by encoding at 640x480, at the fps of the original video (YouTube can display at any frame rate -- I have uploaded old film at its original frame rate of 12, 15, 16, or 18 fps, and it plays great). I then choose a bitrate to give me a file size just under the 100 MByte maximum.

The only time I use 320x240 is when the video contains LOTS of motion (like a sports video). Like all digital video, this is tradeoff between spatial and temporal quality.

[Edit] After reading John Cline's response below I thought I should add that, like him, I use WMV.

The new "Higher Definition" YouTube video is 480x360 at around 800Kbps, so if you upload anything under 480x360, YouTube will only encode it at its much lower quality 320x240 at about 350Kbps. If you upload anything larger than 480x360, then YouTube will encode at both 320x240 and 480x360 and your users will be able to choose between the two. (Although, if you embed it on an external site, it will only be presented in the lower quality 320x240.)

Like John Meyer, I upload 640x480 .WMV files at a bitrate high enough to just fill up the 100MB upload limit. Typically, this works out to about 3 Mbits with 44.1k audio at 192Kbps.

Guys, I really appreciate your insight on this. However, I find that if I upload at the resolutions you suggest, YouTube doesn't take advantage of the full screen. Have you guys not found this to be the case?

I'm essentially doing everything the same as you guys recommend. I started by doing a forum search and YouTube search, following what was said. The quality of the videos were good (for YouTube), but I was still not getting a full screen like some of the YouTube videos I have viewed. I found the only way to get that was to upload at 1280x720. All my other settings are essentially the same as what you are using.

My experiments continue...

Regards,

Joe

I've been using 1280x720 wmv at 6 mbs and I get nice full screen (16x9) video. I think the higher the resolution given the file size limits is the way to go.

Note that YouTube limits are now 10 minutes and 1 GB. Use to be 100 MB so that is why the YouTube videos are looking better these days.

InterceptPoint,

Thanks, this confirms what I am doing. I'm going to increase the bitrate keeping the new 1GB limit in mind and see what that does to the quality.

Joe

What settings are you currently using?

I am using 640x480 and 1 Mb/s bit rate. I used these settings based on another forum post I read elsewhere, where the user was claiming to be getting very good results from such settings.

One thing I seem to be doing wrong is that my 16:9 videos end up getting squeezed into 4:3, unless I render it in a way that the 16:9 video is letterboxed in a 4:3 frame.

Rick

Rick,

Try using 1280x720. I think you'll find this may look better. If you do try this, please let me know how it works for you.

As I was saying, the quality of my videos have been fine, I was having issues with screen size.

Joe

try 1024 x 596

Thanks, wtfx, I will experiment with this.