How to Make YouTube Videos Look Great

1. Poor Transcoding: In Normal Mode, YouTube converts anything you upload to Flash 7 video (250 kbps) which isn't so great by today's standards. However most installed browsers will play Flash 7.

2. Scaled Up Player: YouTube expands the video for viewing to 480x360 pixels in its website, thus degrading the actual video resolution of 320x240 pixels, namely the video looks softened and sometimes pixelated. It's the same effect when you view a DVD at full screen in your computer. You're not increasing the number of pixels, just spreading them out further.

They made a decision that most users would favor size over quality. They know what they're doing, they're overwhelmingly popular!

1. Read How To Shoot and Edit Videos For The Web.
2. YouTube (newest) recommended settings are:

• H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 format
  
• 640x480 (SD) or 1280x720 (HD) for 4:3 & 16:9 aspect ratios.
  
• Frame rate should be the same as original video
  
• Sampling rate: 44.1KHz for MP3/AAC audio
  

3. Your source video needs to be ideally high resolution. For instance: MOV or AVI file, NTSC 720x480, HDV 1080i, 720p or VGA 640x480.

4. It's very important that you keep an aspect ratio of 4:3 or 16:9, otherwise the quality of your video will be degraded. Flash 7 codec performs best when the frame width and height use multiples of 16. This is optimal for video playback.

5. If you want to fit the player perfectly, encode at these 16:9 resolutions:

1080p: 1920x1080
720p: 1280x720
480p: 854x480
360p: 640x360
240p: 426x240

6. You need to get a high quality video encoder. Keep in mind that most video editing programs such as Apple Final Cut Pro, iMovie, Adobe Premiere Pro, Windows Movie Maker or Sony Vegas, come with an encoding engine so you can export your videos directly from the timeline.

7. YouTube has updated its technology, and now you have the option of watching some videos at a higher quality or in HD 720p Mode. Read YouTube High Definition for more in-depth info.

8. In Hi-Res Mode, YouTube creates 2 new copies of your video:

• 448x336 pixels, Flash 7 video @ 900Kbps. Audio @ 44.1KHz Mono.
  
• 480x360 pixels, H.264 video @ 512Kbps. Audio @ 44.1KHz Stereo.
  

So now you're ready to watch the tutorials, try my recipe settings and you'll be on your way to optimize the quality of your videos for YouTube.

The following tutorials will give you an idea on how to compress videos for YouTube, but you need to understand that the key is to input the right settings.

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Posted May 3rd, 2007 by Megan Casey

If you got to this stage in the article then you are probably pretty serious about getting the best settings and filters compressing videos for YouTube using QuickTime Pro or Sorenson Squeeze.

1. Use H.264 codec, the best MPEG4 codec in the market today.

2. Set Quality to Best and encoding to Multipass.

3. Set key frames to Automatic.

4. Set data rate to Automatic.

5. Uncheck Frame Reordering.

6. Set aspect ratio to 640x480 for NTSC or PAL, or 1280x720 for HD video.



7. Set frame rate same as original video.

8. Set audio compression AAC: 48 KHz, 128 kbps, Constant Bit Rate (CBR) 16 bits, stereo.

9. De-interlace your NTSC or PAL source videos, especially if it's high motion.

10. Apply filters to improve the look of your video: a bright/contrast filter and/or an image sharpening filter.

11. The section Prepare for Internet Streaming must be set to Fast Start.

Remember, all these compression settings are the best compromise between keeping the video smaller than 1GB and keeping as much information as possible from the original video file.

The best settings and filters compressing videos for YouTube using VirtualDub. Remember VirtualDub is a very sophisticated encoding tool.

1. Buy and install DviX Pro Codec.

2. Open VirtualDub and "Open video file" so it loads into the viewer.



3. From Video menu, choose Compression and it opens a new window. Select video compression: Divx 6.x codec (2 Logical CPUs) and click Configure.



4. Then it opens the Divx Codec Properties which has 3 tabs. Please use this DviX tutorial as reference.

5. On the Main Tab. Set Certification Profile to Unconstrained. Set Encoding Presets to 10. Set Rate Control mode to 1-pass quality-based, and Fixed quantizer to 4. This action will set the bit rate to about 10Mbps.



6. Leave Codec Tab the way it is.



7. On the Video Tab, Set Format In to the appropriate value, depending on your source and Format Out to Square Pixels. Check "No resize or format conversion". Leave everything else as default, since Filters will be used to resize, deinterlace, etc. Click OK twice to close the DivX settings.



8. Now we're ready to apply some filters. From VDub's Video Menu select Filters...Then apply deinterlace filter if your source is NTSC ot PAL video, resize filter to set aspect ratio to 640x480.



9. From VDub's Video Menu select Frame Rate...If your source is 29.97fps or 30fps, set "Frame rate conversion" to No Change. If not, click "Change to 30 frames per second". Leave everything else the same.

10. Install the MP3 codec for VirtualDub LAME MP3 encoder. Once the downloaded file is extracted, select, right click the LameACM.inf file and do Install.



11. From VDub's Audio Menu select "Full processing mode", then select "Compression...". The choose 44.1KHz 128kbs Stereo CBR.



12. Apply other Filters to improve the look of your video: a bright/contrast filter and/or an image sharpening filter.

13. From VDub's File Menu select "Save as AVI" and your source file will be processed.

Remember, all these compression settings are the best compromise between keeping the video smaller than 1GB and keeping as much information as possible from the original video file.

Another way to have a high-quality YouTube video, is to avoid that YouTube servers re-encode your uploaded videos.

How can make YouTube servers not to touch my uploaded videos?

The trick is to fool YouTube into NOT re-encoding you FLV file. So the only way is to upload Flash 7 files to YouTube with a bit rate NOT higher than 350 kbps, so that YouTube will NOT re-encode your file. DO NOT use On2 VP6 Flash codec (FLV 8), since YouTube will re-encode your video, thus it'll be degraded. Remember, the goal is to make YouTube to accept your video without "touching" it.

I would recommend this method if your video is an animation, a presentation, has little motion and/or few scene changes.

Unfortunately this method is not working anymore, we're researching for a different method to achieve similar results. Please feel free to experiment with it.

Which Flash encoders can I use?

Flash encoders such as Sorenson Squeeze, FFmpeg, Riva FLV Encoder or MEncoder. I particularly like Sorenson Squeeze for its user friendly interface. Flash encoders are for intermediate to advanced compressionists. They are not designed for the casual user.

Which parameters should I use with my Flash video encoder?

These are the main parameters to use with your Flash 7 (also known as Sorenson Spark H.263) encoder to accomplish the goal:

1. It's very important to have a high-quality source video.

2. Set target bit rate to 347 kbps.

3. Output aspect ratio should be 320x240.

4. Set frame rate to 15fps if your source is 29.97 or 30fps, and 12fps if your source is 24 or 25fps.

5. Set key frames to every 100 frames or more without compromising the quality of the video. The bigger the value, the smaller the file.

6. Set rate control to 2-pass Variable Bit Rate (VBR) or Multipass.

7. Set audio compression to MP3, 22.050 KHz, 48 kbps, 16 bits, monophonic.

8. De-interlace if your videos, especially if they are high motion videos.

9. Apply filters to improve the look of your video: a bright/contrast filter, a noise filter or/and image sharpening filter.

10. If your video looks good already after applying the above settings, you can still improve it, but remember you need to keep your bit rate to less than 347kbps. So you may try one or more of these settings:

• Up aspect ratio to 448x336 pixels
  
• Up audio rate to 44.1KHz 64kbps Stereo
  
• Up audio frame rate to 30fps if your source video is 29.97 or 30fps
  
• Up audio frame rate to 24fps if your source video is 24 or 25fps
  

Most of the time these improvements will look good with graphic/text videos but not with motion videos.

How can I calculate and measure the bit rate of my Flash video file?

1. Use the Flash video FLV bit rate calculator to figure out which parameters you are going to use. Select Video Codec: Sorenson Spark. Play with the Adjustments to find the best values for your Flash video encoder. Keep in mind that the calculator is not 100% accurate, so it'll be some trial and error involved. Click on the picture below to start.


by Robert Reinhardt

2. There is great free tool to get the bitrate of a flash video file called MediaInfo

Absolutely. The video compression settings shown above will improve your videos as well on Web 2.0 video sites such as: AOL Video, Blip.tv, Castpost, ClipShack, Dailymotion, eyespot, Flurl, Google Video, Grouper, iFilm, Metacafe, MySpace, Revver, Stage6, Veoh, VideoEgg, Vimeo, vSocial, Yahoo Video, etc.