Just to add to this topic:
I have been experimenting with Vegas for quite some time to try and get the best Youtube playback quality. I have found the following settings to be best for video:

WMV format
Video rendering quality: Best (not sure how much difference this makes)
Audio: CBR WMA 9.2, 64kbs, 44khz stereo
Video: Quality VBR, WMV9, 640x360, PAR:1.000, Quality:100

I tried the video size at the recommended 480x360 but got slightly worse results.

As an example, here's one I uploaded recently.


Hope that helps,
Andy.

Thanks for the tip Andy. Nice video by the way. Would these settings also work well if your original/edited files are in HDV? Just wondering if those files could be rendered to your recommendations and not make them worse off.

I did one this week where I converted my HDV file to .avi at 760x480 NTSC widescreen and wasn't that excited about the results. When will Vegas get us a nice youtube option?

Note: embedded YouTube videos -- like the video in Andy's post above -- apparently always default to the low-quality YouTube format.

To see the improved video, click on the video itself so that it takes you to the actual YouTube page. Just below the video player there, below the "Views" counter, you will see a link to "Watch in High Quality". Let the original play for a bit, then click the High Quality link to see the improvement.

You can also try viewing in full-screen mode -- its not great, but its tolerable.

Also, if you have a YouTube account and are logged in, you can go to your Account settings and tell YouTube to always default to playing in High Quality mode when available.

Tim L

Thanks Andy for the tip. I've just uploaded my latest clip to YouTube using your specs .. and the result is the best quality for me so far.

BUT, not without a price ... my 10 minute video ended up as an over 800 meg upload!!



Richard in Boston

a while back I did an experiment where I encoded a video with many different formats and bitrates.

As I remember I didn't note much difference between WMV, MOV, and MPEG. It also seemed like there was no noticebale difference after 512Kbs so my standard method of encoding for Youtube was 512Kbs WMV.

Since that time Youtube has started to use H.264 to encode video and it was even reported they were going to reencode the older videos.

It looks like I may need to run more experiments based on what you guys are finding. Maybe something has changed recently.

I still don't think the audio on youtube is stereo.

Does all this info mean that you should no longer submit your utuube videos as flash?

I created a test file and encoded with different formats like wmv, mov, mpeg2 and avi etc.
See what you think.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=03E42D05F3584B4A

Everything looks pretty good at 640x480 or higher. I never realized the 512mbs setting looked so bad.

panzer9448,
Thanks for the compliment.
These settings will work for HDV but I would have thought. you'd get an even better picture. The better the source, the better possibility of a better quality final render. Mine was DV source, so I can't say for sure.

Tim L,
You mention the embedded video. It's odd, because not only did I not purposely embed it (it just ended up that way), but if I read this thread on another PC all I see is the URL, no embedding. Odd.
Also, the link is already for the HQ version. If you notice, I add the &fmt=6 suffix on the URL to force the HQ mode.

brighterside,
Nice intro! Loved the wobbly UFO. I was just wondering why you didn't get it to fill the whole frame. Also, 800MB does seem a lot. I uploaded a 6 minute one recently and that was only 100MB.

RE: wobbly UFO

I didn't want it to fill the frame. I wanted it to be more subtle. It was an animated gif .. so I used "track motion" to get it as small as I wanted it to be, and also to travel from one side of the frame to the other.

The sound effect for the UFO was from Digital Juice.

Brighterside,
Sorry, my wording implied the the flying saucer. What I meant was: why did the video not fill the whole frame?
A.

@ Andy: "You mention the embedded video. It's odd, because not only did I not purposely embed it (it just ended up that way), but if I read this thread on another PC all I see is the URL, no embedding. Odd."

Whether or not image and videos are embedded in a thread (or shown as links) is controlled by a setting in the viewer's forum settings. Click on "My Account" at the top of the page, then "Forum Settings". There is a checkbox "Show images and videos in forum messages". If ticked, the forum server sends you a page with the items embedded. If unticked, you just get the links. I don't know which one is the default if you are reading the forum and not logged in as a user.

Tim L

"why did the video not fill the whole frame?"

You mean the where the UFO enters and leaves the frame?

AHH .. I couldn't figure out how to do it. Of course, after I had rendered it .. I did figure it out .. but at the time no combination of movement, of clicking various icons on the left would give me the UFO entering / leaving at the extreme edges of the frame.

Of course I don't remember how I solved that problem .. and will likely have to figure it out from scratch if I do something similar again ;-)

I've been using VMS for years now and still don't know how to do a lot of "stuff"

Whether or not image and videos are embedded in a thread (or shown as links) is controlled by a setting in the viewer's forum settings
Ah, that figures - thanks Tim.


You mean the where the UFO enters and leaves the frame?

No, I meant the whole video. It's got a black border around it. Just curious,
A.

"No, I meant the whole video. It's got a black border around it. Just curious,"

Hmmm .. I didn't notice that until just now. I didn't do that on pur pose, and the only thing I did different from my other YouTube videos is try to use your "high quality" settings. Maybe I miss-set one of them??? This is the only one I tried using your settings, but I'm getting good enough results with just plain mpeg2 (DVD) that I think I'll stick with that instead. It's quicker and a much smaller upload.