Thanks for Revver tip. Implied in this referral seems to be the fact that YouTube won't accept anything over 320 x 240, or am I mis-assuming?

The only reason to use YouTube seems due to its market share and popularity, hence more viewers.

You can also try Stage6 which uses divx and allows you to stream in High Definition. You can also make menus and encode with subs if you want. It is free and there is no time or file size limit.

j razz

Should i make the obvious statement ... "what do you expect for free?"

Ditto what Kelly said.

The simplest way is to upload an exact size .flv.

From my experience youtube will not recompress if it's already in .flv format. ( haven't uploaded anything in more than a year though, but that was the case, and I don't see why it still wouldn't be )

You question is valid, as I find it quite stupid ( youtube recommendation ) to upload 320 x 240 and then have youtube resize it.

I think the web player is resizing it on the fly. Check your browser cache after viewing a couple and think you'll find that YouTube always resizes to 320x240.

In my experience they re-encode everything you send them and yes, the quality comes out crap. What's good about them is download speed on slow connections and of course their audience.

I send them 320x240 Xvid at 1Mbps.

Yes, Revver.com is worth checking out. Also Veoh.com. And if you really want to be in control of your own encoding then try Brightcove.com

For example videos embedded from Revver check out my Bali diving page.

For example videos embedded from Brightcove check out my Bunaken diving page.

Which do people prefer of those 2 multi-players?

Nick,

YouTube cache/resizing up:

--- Maybe you guys are right, but doing a simple window minimize in both Firefox and IE7 didn't resize the non-320x240 player, just hide part of it. My sys screen rez is set at 2048 x768..
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Regarding the two different presentations of your work:

---- I couldn't see any noticeable footage difference, if there even is any.

Seems more like a an interface preference:

---- IMO Brightcove takes a bit to load up into a slicker looking interface and clips list,than the more tables-oriented Revver,

---- But Revver also seems to gray out the list and descriptions of other ciips under it when selected clip is playing.

So Brightcove seems more practical/common user friendly to navigate, by a hair. Again, it's really a matter of personal taste.

Then again, what do I know, I'm not professional video-grapher, just a seriouisly obsessed aspirant film-maker :)

Maybe you guys are right, but doing a simple window minimize in both Firefox and IE7 didn't resize the non-320x240 player, just hide part of it.

I don't think that's quite what they meant.

What YouTube does is this: The video itself is 320x240 -- this is a standard size for online video. But, I suppose because this is so small and they don't want their users straining their eyes too much, the code for YouTube's site is set to display the video at a larger size -- the one you see. It's not that your browser grows or shrinks the video as the browser window resizes -- just that your browser resizes the video from it's actual size to what YouTube's website says to display it at.

In fact, you can hit the second icon from the right on the transport bar for any video, and this will display the video at its proper resolution of 320x240. Or click on the net icon over and see it really stretched out. ;-)

Rob

Rob,

You may be correct, though I found something that may support my larger 400-something x 300-something format size and the .FLV route -- or not. Creative Cow has a promo video at YouTube coincidentally called...

FLV Test 805 Kbps (450x338)

It's at --- --- if player doesn't show up below.

This and other tests are done by one of the guys at Creative Cow who creates their podcasts. You can go to his profile page http://www.youtube.com/user/arabinowitz or do a search with his username -- arabinowitz.

I just shot over an email with a copy of my opening post here to him to reply at his leisure. Curious as to what his take will be.

As to the player bar toggle, one does nothing (still looks like the rez Creative Cow mentions), The other does a full screen across both of my monitors since I have duals, one desktop (not too viewer-friendly for me for me :)

.flv files I uploaded were not recompressed. Those I fished out of cache after viewing them on youtube were the exact same files I uploaded.

They were same size in pixels, same kbps and same size in MB too.
They were also buffereing quite a bit, because they were of much higher bit rate than youtube recompressed video.

I could do another test if I find some time, but about a year ago, that is what was going on.

YouTube will accept an upload of any resolution, framerate, whatever. But it must be less than 100MB, less than 10 mins.
Output is 320x240 once their server encodes it to Flash. The 640 x 480 iPod template reset to 1Mbps works very well as a source, BTW.

I followed the footsteps of , but to no avail. Notice the clear absence of stereo. Perhaps their methods of re-encoding have changed?

YouTube FLV Test (805 Kbps)


Upload Format: Flash FLV
Resolution: 450 x 338
Frame Rate: 30 FPS
Key Frame Every: 45 Frames
Video Codec: Sorenson Spark Pro
Audio Codec: Frauhoffer MP3
Video Data Rate: 680 Kbps
Audio Data Rate: 128 Kbps
Total Data Rate: 805 Kbps

Sorenson 2-Pass VBRTotal File Size: 831 KB

Well, looks like the upload/view size issue is settled:

--- As stated in my last post, I sent a brief email to Aharon who does the podcasts for Creative Cow (and has his own prod. co, All Bets Are Off -- http://www.allbetsareoff.com/).

He's the guy who did the various YouTube upload tests mentioned.

First is my note to him, second his reply.
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Hi Aharon,

No rush on this, reply at your earliest convenience.

I'm a member at Creative Cow (Particleillusion) and also at the Sony Media Forum (Vegas). Just joined YouTube and started a thread at the Vegas on best upload format -- and actual player size. I've included the opening post at the end here. [not included since this is the Vegas forum]

Various people as well as YouTube say different things about best way to upload.

Bottom line:

Since you've tested the waters there, albeit a while back"

--- A) What IS the best upload format.
--- B) What IS the real viewing size. It looks like what one of your tests stated, 450 x 338.

Thanks.


Philip Steven Knight
Los Angeles, CA
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His Reply:

Yeah - tough one, right?

YouTube shut off the ability to upload FLV files without re-compression, so no matter what you do it will always be set to 320x240 and the scaled up in the player to 450x337 or 337 (used to be 338).

In the past you could upload any quality FLV and it would stick, now even if you upload an FLV, it re-compresses it.

YouTube just sucks. I would not rely on it to show high quality video.

Best,

Aharon
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