In my test. it is indeed look better when you up load 2560x1440P to Youtube. 1080P is 1080P, you won't gain quality with higher resolution but Youtube allowed a higher birate for 1440P. That is why you see the higher quality in Youtube . When up load a 1080P footage on Youtube you get poor quality because of the low birate.

Yeah i believe Youtube starts compressing at 12Mbps, but dam it just looks silly when left at 1080p like its all pixelated and shoot, would you all recommend leaving at 1440p or left at 1080

Also when upscaling, does vegas "add" more pixels or does it stretch the image?

I must add to this that popular youtubers upload at 1080 and it looks brilliant but thats because they have the VP09 codec, is there any other way to get this put on your videos?

And if you all started youtube would you upscale or?

I always go 1440P for youtube with 1080P video. Its simply better quality for it.

Cheers there @Brett-Maloney i think that is the best option - may aswell since i already started the channel off with it. If i do get quite alot of views id probably move back to 1080p though

The choice is yours. I like what I see and I will continued to stay with that for 1080P video.

im guessing 1280x720 upscaled to 1440p would be more dangerous though compared to 1080 to 1440

Once again, this topic has triggered divergent responses from highly-qualified users, going back many years. Based on some preliminary testing, I was unable to identify a clear winner, except that shadow noise seemed a little higher in the upscaled version.

Of course, subjective response, even when colored by expectations, is a factor that cannot be ruled out on the individual level. For that reason, I think you should make a decision, leaving open the possibility of revising it later. I would leave it at 1080p for YouTube, unless part of a UHD project, and not being very interested in identifying shades of mediocrity in their output.

Be aware, of course, that internet pundits and alchemists persistently hype this kind of stuff, without documentation, to draw hits to their own websites.

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/youtube-tricks-for-higher-quality--106494/#ca659329

Im not sure how people would respond to the quality of 1080p with no VP09, so id probably change when i get up the leaderboards a little as i know that 1440p can be a bit hard on peoples internet aswell

Or maybe just sticking to 1080 is the way to go right now?, im really thinking hard about this

Well, it really is fine to promote your YouTube channel, so why not post some links to your tests, and invite other peoples' reactions?

Hmmmmm or i might just go back to 1080p 60fps at 15Mbps.... seems like the way to go to be very honest

Higher bitare - less viewers as there internet may not be capable

Upscaling - only if it benefits the watcher, if not why upscale as loss of quality

1080p seems significant over 1440p upscale, and quality isnt everything i guess

And i think your right i might just start at 1080 and get your guys recommendations thanks @Musicvid

I'll throw another variable into this quagmire. Happy Otter Scripts for Vegas Pro allows you to render to VP9. I did it once and uploaded to YouTube just to see it work, but I'm neutral on the subject except that I have my favorite render methods.

Personally, 1) I think the user device capability has a lot to do with the experience, and 2) I think all of my videos look like crap from YouTube even though they look stunning at 70-100 Mbps.

YouTube returns my UHD videos in VP9...

... while the one uploaded @1080p comes back as AVC.

@john_dennis i render at 1440p at 30mbps, my raw file is 1080p at 50mbps, the end result i would like is for my 1080p video to become vp09 but youtube only converts it if you have a high viewership or if you upload 1440p

so in theory my 1080p footage will stay avc, until i either upscale or get more views

Linustechtips did a video years ago that showed up-scaling to 4k from 1080p to youtube makes a huge difference.

It is worth noting again that just throwing higher bitrates at YouTube does ...absolutely nothing.

It is also worth noting that VP9 has no inherent quality advantage -- just compression, similar to x265.

I stand correct. Render a standard Magix 1080P template for Youtube is not looking good on youtube, I render 2560 x 1440P at this setting in the screen shot. I believed my eyes. My eyes tell me it absolutely look better then 1080P. I don't care what other tell me. . You to should believe your own eyes as well. Render per my screen shot settings, the video look better on my 10 bit BenQ 4K 32" monitor and it laso look extremely great on ipad and smartphone.

A side note. If you start with shitt y quality 1080P video. You are going no where.

@AveSatanas

Does Upscaling hurt quality?!, Is this VP09 just a hoax?

Software upscaling is always destructive. Newer algorithms are so much better than Bicubic that the visual results are nearly identical, but not as good as hardware upscaling.

VP9 is not a hoax. It gives better compression than x264 at measurably identical quality. There is no quality to be gained beyond optimal, generally considered as 0.995 SSIM.

Also when upscaling, does vegas "add" more pixels or does it stretch the image?

At its most basic, Vegas interpolates (averages) adjacent pixels to synthesize the gaps. Anamorphic stretching is an unrelated storage scheme. Think of all upscaling as a form of controlled noise.

The same is not true of bit depth, where 8 bits wrapped as 10 bits is still 8 gallons of water in a 10 gallon bucket.

Your eyes is the judge not the graphs.

Of course, subjective response, even when colored by expectations, is a factor that cannot be ruled out on the individual level. 

Of course, the 900 lb. elephant in this discussion is how one does the upscaling.

Old-school Bicubic is not very good. Vegas' smart resample is not available to me because of the GPU preview crash discussed elsewhere. I don't know how it compares to Lanczos, but that one has been quite good to me in ffmpeg, when resizing 720 to 1080 for inclusion in a YouTube project, for instance.

For this discussion, choosing the right algorithm is possibly more important than collateral losses / gains seen through Youtube's processing -- something no outfit with an ounce of integrity should be doing to video in the first place.

Happy Otter Scripts uses ffmpeg, so the OP could use that method to achieve the best quality upscale.