YouTube High Quality Change?

Sonata wrote on 2/12/2009, 6:50 AM

I have uploaded about 8 videos in widescreen format to YouTube over the past month or so.

6 of the 8 videos give me a "watch in high quality" option.

The most recent 2 of the 8 videos do not give me that option anymore.

I have used the same exact template and rendering parameters for all 8 videos. I have changed absolutely nothing on my end.

Not only have my two most recent videos not provided the high quality link, but I have noticed that the two most recent videos have taken substantially longer to "process" once on the YouTube site than all of my other videos of the same length.

So, with these two things in mind (the high quality option and longer processing time), has something changed within YouTube that I am not aware of?

The other weird thing is that the last video I uploaded which gave a high quality option and much shorter processing time was only minutes before uploading the first video without the option and longer processing time.

[The reason I even care in the first place is that I put a lot of work into making short videos to share with family and I find the difference between normal quality and high quality to be quite substantial and I like to take advantage of it.]

Comments

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 2/12/2009, 8:31 AM

Make sure you use a 720p hd template. Also, it may take several hours before the 'watch in hd' link appears.

Sonata wrote on 2/12/2009, 9:52 AM

I don't have an HD template; this is all for SD video and using VMS9 [basic]. I created my own 6xxX3xx template at 3Mbps and it's been working great for 6 out of 8 videos.

Yes, it does usually take several hours for the high quality link to show up, but the last two videos have been on there for a few days now (one of them for two weeks) with no high quality link.

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 2/12/2009, 1:22 PM

This is what YouTube help says:
Learn More: Uploading Higher-Quality Videos
All you need to do is continue uploading the highest quality video you have available. The quality of the uploaded video combined with individual viewers' bandwidth will determine if the video is displayed at "Higher Quality."
Here are a few things that may work well for you:
MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format
MP3 audio
Video resolution: 480x360 or higher
Frame Rate: 24fps or higher

YouTube HD is evolving all the time, I guess, which explains the inconsistencies. Try contacting YouTube support or a forum. This isn't really a Vegas issue, is it.

Sonata wrote on 2/13/2009, 5:31 AM

At first I thought maybe other Vegas users would have similiar issues and have found their own resolutions within Vegas' settings to accommodate the higher quality option, which is totally appropriate for a Vegas forum.

I, too, found that information on the YouTube site (except it was a similar but different page) and I figured it's just the result of YouTube constantly experimenting with stuff, so I can bring my issue to other YouTube users instead.

Dave wrote on 3/5/2009, 6:30 PM

"I created my own 6xxX3xx template"

What kind of a template is that? I'm not familiar with that terminology.

Thanks.

OhMyGosh wrote on 3/5/2009, 11:00 PM

'This isn't really a Vegas issue, is it.' It isn't? Great, I was just going to post a question about YouTube, but I thought it, as do many things, relates to Vegas. I did a video for a garage band on DVD, and now they want me to render and load it to Facebook. Never been to the site before, but assume it must be just like YouTube. I want it to be the best quality possible (duh), but can't find the 'YouTube' setting that I thought Vegas had just for this sort of thing. The original footage is SD 720X480X24 and wanted a little advice on the best way to do it, so if I posted in the wrong place.....sorry. Cin

Sonata wrote on 3/6/2009, 6:01 AM

I created my own template with a resolution of 640x360, 3M bitrate, cropped with 16:9, and then saved it that way so I don't have to set it up from scratch each time.

I set up all my videos for YouTube the same way, and now 50% get a high quality option and 50% do not. Oh, well, at least now I can embed them at 640x360 and change colors, too!

richard-amirault wrote on 3/6/2009, 1:44 PM

... it may take several hours before the 'watch in hd' link appears.

The original poster said "high quality" not HD. Those are two different things.

I've posted "high quality" videos on YouTube by uploading in standard DVD quality mpg2.

Ivan Lietaert wrote on 3/7/2009, 12:30 AM

Uploading dvd mpg2 to youtube is not 'size efficient': the files are very big compared to wmv or mov or mp4. I would never advise a person to upload mpg2 files.

You may be right about HD vs HQ. I still stick to my original post, though: if you want to have consistent 'higher quality' video on youtube, you must render to 720p, which isn't true HD anyhow, though YT will refer to it with 'HD'.

It's about time that Youtube comes out of the closet with their conversion criteria. It now seems too much of a lottery.

BittenByTheBug wrote on 3/30/2009, 9:57 AM

I found the following in a YouTube help article titled Optimizing your video uploads:

"YouTube recently began offering users an option to view content in high definition- 720p resolution (when the source upload supports it). Please note, we are currently experimenting with this feature and optimizing it accordingly, so we can't guarantee that your videos will always be transcoded into this format with this user option present."

Sonata wrote on 3/31/2009, 6:57 AM

Please note that I was talking about HQ here, not HD, with a SD source, not HD source.

Since this thread, YouTube has made even more changes, and I get a HQ option 100% of the time using SD video. Just use a 3M bitrate and render in Best quality.