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Corabar Entertainment
21-11-2008, 10:41 AM
Looking for some advice on uploading video clips to YouTube.

Clips are taken with a digital camera which produces .AVI files. YouTube will take these and convert them, but the quality is poor. I believe that if you convert them first, then the quality on YouTube is better. Does anyone know if this is correct?

If so, what should they be converted to, and what software do I need to do this? (preferably cheap or free!)

All advice welcome! TA.;)

Marc J
21-11-2008, 11:12 AM
Try Riva FLV Encoder (http://rivavx.com/index.php?encoder).

Best settings for YouTube are 640 x 480, 30 FPS, 64k mono or 128k Stereo.

The Riva FLV Encoder encodes to FLV (Flash Video) which is the format YouTube uses. Apparently, this actually means that the video will become available quicker (there's sometimes a delay while YouTube converts the format if you upload an AVI, MPG etc). I've never actually used this method so couldn't say for sure if it'll give better results.

There's also Virtualdub (http://www.virtualdub.org/), another free video convertor, use the xVid codec (http://www.xvid.org/Downloads.15.0.html) with the same settings as above. Search on YouTube itself for tutorial on Virtualdub settings for YouTube. Some might say to use 320 x 240, but they're old...YouTube now say 640 x 480 is best (as they now give an option to watch higher resolution videos in high quality).

EDIT: Just noticed you say clips were taken with a digital camera....your raw files might not be a very high resolution at all in that case (if it's a digital stills camera....digital video camera would be OK), and so increasing the resolution to the sizes mentioned would make no difference - you can only work with what you have to start with.

CRAZY K
21-11-2008, 03:38 PM
Looking for some advice on uploading video clips to YouTube.

Clips are taken with a digital camera which produces .AVI files. YouTube will take these and convert them, but the quality is poor. I believe that if you convert them first, then the quality on YouTube is better. Does anyone know if this is correct?

If so, what should they be converted to, and what software do I need to do this? (preferably cheap or free!)

All advice welcome! TA.;)

Hi Angela, sounds like you have similar vid clips to mine taken on a standard camera--

I have 28 uploaded to You tube--mostly of reasonable quality--strangely the one taken by a Pro video man and using Clives Bose system doesnt sound and look much different to my £130 digital camera and Peavey System.

If you are uploading to YT then its very simple and I think there is a very slight improvement in the quality--however if the starting quality is not good I dont know of any method of improving it as Marc says--you may need some more better quality clips to start with--if they are going on a Website to showcase your Disco then I would start again.

I have also noticed on YT the sound quality with some vid clips is dreadful--never mind the picture!

Mine are here taken with the Canon IXUS 70---

http://uk.youtube.com/user/ULTIMATECOUNTRY1

regards

ALAN
CRAZY K

Corabar Entertainment
21-11-2008, 05:26 PM
Thanks.

Initial quality appears pretty **** good on screen - it's just in the YouTube conversion that they go a bit 'off'.

Thanks for the tips Marc - I'll have a good look at those :D :D :D

Marc J
21-11-2008, 06:08 PM
Further reading: http://blog.jimmyr.com/High_Quality_on_Youtube_11_2008.php

Be sure to check out the high quality example (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY&fmt=22) on that page - pretty cool and an example of the quality you'll get with a little experimentation - I'm off to play around with some of my own...I'll report back if I'm successful :)

Marc J
21-11-2008, 08:09 PM
Even further reading: http://www.dvd-guides.com/content/view/143/59/

That isn't YouTube related, but mentions the H.264 format which apparently works well with YouTube, and also has a tutorial on a free H.264 encoder called SUPER. Play with the settings there and you could get good results.

Whatever you upload, YouTube will by default show it in fully compressed mode initially. You need to look for the "view in high quality" link underneath - that means you've successfully uploaded a compatible HQ video file. You can try to force HQ viewing by adding &ftm=x where x is a number(see the link in my post above this one).

FYI I've successfully uploaded an HQ video at 1280 x 720 AVC MP4, Baseline 30FPS, 2 pass, 2,000kbps Average / Max, 44,100Hz 256kbps audio (use &fmt=22) but that was done with an HD camcorder source and rendered with Sony Vegas Pro, neither of which were cheap...but you should be able to use the same settings with free software.

Corabar Entertainment
21-11-2008, 09:36 PM
Brilliant Marc..... now all I need to do is set aside some time to read all of this stuff and work it all out! :eek:

Corabar Entertainment
25-11-2008, 11:19 PM
Still looking at various options on this.

Whilst searching around I found this bit of software: http://www.addvideoeasy.com/
( Their webpage is naff to say the least, but that aside!)

It costs just over £60, but converts the file, plus you can add your own look player to the video.... and they allow you to host the videos on their server (and I've checked with them - no limit on the number of videos they will host, so long as each video is less than 5mb and there is no limit on the length of time they will host it for).

Take a minute to look at the demo (it's towards the bottom of the page, or here's a direct link http://www.easywebvideo.com/demo/3_Step_Web_Video.html. It looks so completely simple it's untrue!

It looks too good to be true..... can anyone see any catch / what am I missing?

Marc J
26-11-2008, 08:57 AM
That looks pretty good and fairly straightforward. Only think I can think of is that the 5mb size limit is fairly limiting when you're talking about video files.

You might want to take a look JW FLV Player (http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Player). For commercial use it's €30 per site, but allows you to host your own video and skin the player how you like. It will also play YouTube videos in the player without it linking to YouTube (as YouTube's own embed code does), so you use their bandwidth :)

Of course with that you still have to convert the video and upload to YouTube (or your own server) at a decent quality.

CRAZY K
26-11-2008, 09:40 AM
That looks pretty good and fairly straightforward. Only think I can think of is that the 5mb size limit is fairly limiting when you're talking about video files.

You might want to take a look JW FLV Player (http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Player). For commercial use it's €30 per site, but allows you to host your own video and skin the player how you like. It will also play YouTube videos in the player without it linking to YouTube (as YouTube's own embed code does), so you use their bandwidth :)

Of course with that you still have to convert the video and upload to YouTube (or your own server) at a decent quality.

I agree 5mb is way too small for a meaningful video thats going to impress anyone.

Just my view:D

CRAZY K

Marc J
26-11-2008, 05:00 PM
I just noticed - YouTube's gone widescreen (as of yesterday, apparently). :D

nigelwright7557
26-11-2008, 09:58 PM
Looking for some advice on uploading video clips to YouTube.

Clips are taken with a digital camera which produces .AVI files. YouTube will take these and convert them, but the quality is poor. I believe that if you convert them first, then the quality on YouTube is better. Does anyone know if this is correct?

If so, what should they be converted to, and what software do I need to do this? (preferably cheap or free!)

All advice welcome! TA.;)

Youtube automatically reduces the resolution so they take up less space on their hard drive. I found teh same with my uploaded videos, look good on my pc but pixelated on youtube.

CRAZY K
26-11-2008, 10:50 PM
I just noticed - YouTube's gone widescreen (as of yesterday, apparently). :D

DOH!! didnt notice that

Your right--looks better:D

CRAZY K

Jiggles
26-11-2008, 10:54 PM
They say that the will be doing live streaming movies in wide screen 16:9 soon!

Corabar Steve
26-11-2008, 11:17 PM
:offtopic:

Solitaire Events Ltd
27-11-2008, 01:23 AM
:offtopic:

Not really old boy. We are still talking about video clips.

Corabar Steve
27-11-2008, 08:36 AM
Sorry, I didn't realise either of Angela's questions involved widescreen.http://planetsmilies.net/vicious-smiley-1763.gif (http://planetsmilies.net)

Marc J
27-11-2008, 09:30 AM
Youtube automatically reduces the resolution so they take up less space on their hard drive. I found teh same with my uploaded videos, look good on my pc but pixelated on youtube.
As mentioned earlier in the thread, if you encode your video correctly before uploading to YouTube you can get very good results. I've also managed to embed a YouTube video into my own page using the JW FLV Player I linked to earlier at high quality without linking to YouTube or showing the YouTube watermark. This uses their bandwidth without your visitors knowing it's on YouTube. See my demo here (http://www.loweringprices.com/videotest/single.php) (video isn't mine, just an HQ on YouTube).


Sorry, I didn't realise either of Angela's questions involved widescreen.
When converting videos for upload to YouTube the aspect ratio is very important. Since YouTube are now widescreen you should use 16:9 instead of 4:3, otherwise you'll get black blands to either side of your video. Previously widescreen videos were "letterboxed" to fit the 4:3 ratio - as of 25th it's the other way around. I'd say that's a very important point to keep in mind when creating videos for YouTube!

CRAZY K
27-11-2008, 10:21 AM
As mentioned earlier in the thread, if you encode your video correctly before uploading to YouTube you can get very good results. I've also managed to embed a YouTube video into my own page using the JW FLV Player I linked to earlier at high quality without linking to YouTube or showing the YouTube watermark. This uses their bandwidth without your visitors knowing it's on YouTube. See my demo here (http://www.loweringprices.com/videotest/single.php) (video isn't mine, just an HQ on YouTube).


When converting videos for upload to YouTube the aspect ratio is very important. Since YouTube are now widescreen you should use 16:9 instead of 4:3, otherwise you'll get black blands to either side of your video. Previously widescreen videos were "letterboxed" to fit the 4:3 ratio - as of 25th it's the other way around. I'd say that's a very important point to keep in mind when creating videos for YouTube!

Marc--so does that mean you have to convert everything again if you have existing vids on You tube ( like me) with 28 to do I dont think ill bother--

I quite like those black edges:D :D :D

CRAZY K

Marc J
27-11-2008, 10:36 AM
Marc--so does that mean you have to convert everything again if you have existing vids on You tube ( like me) with 28 to do I dont think ill bother--

I quite like those black edges:D :D :D

CRAZY K

The aspect ratio is more governed by the original video source file than the converting. While you can convert a 4:3 to 16:9 it has the effect of "zooming on" on the middle of the screen, chopping off the top and bottom of the frame - so you might find heads start to get chopped off if you had any close to the top :eek: Since it's zooming in, your source video would have to be higher resolution to allow for the zooming effect.

Better (if you can) to take widescreen video in the first place :)

Re YouTube quality - video compression works by analysing the changes between one frame and the next. The more changes between frames the more data has to be included for those frames. Since the data rate is capped (for example 2Mb / sec) the more the image changes = the more the image has to be compressed to keep within that rate = lower quality video. So, basically, when taking videos try to mount your camera rather than have it handheld, thus reducing differences between frames. Being mobile discos there'll be a lot of movement in the shot, anyway, so you need to do all you can to keep the quality at a decent level.

CRAZY K
27-11-2008, 11:03 AM
The aspect ratio is more governed by the original video source file than the converting. While you can convert a 4:3 to 16:9 it has the effect of "zooming on" on the middle of the screen, chopping off the top and bottom of the frame - so you might find heads start to get chopped off if you had any close to the top :eek: Since it's zooming in, your source video would have to be higher resolution to allow for the zooming effect.

Better (if you can) to take widescreen video in the first place :)

Re YouTube quality - video compression works by analysing the changes between one frame and the next. The more changes between frames the more data has to be included for those frames. Since the data rate is capped (for example 2Mb / sec) the more the image changes = the more the image has to be compressed to keep within that rate = lower quality video. So, basically, when taking videos try to mount your camera rather than have it handheld, thus reducing differences between frames. Being mobile discos there'll be a lot of movement in the shot, anyway, so you need to do all you can to keep the quality at a decent level.

Thanks ill be leaving mine as they are-- Status Quo!

CRAZY K