Posting Video to YouTube

[Phil Kurimski]

Has anyone else rendered a nice high-quality storm chase video only to have it look pixellated and blocky when you post it to YouTube? I am wondering if anyone has any tips or tricks they would like to share that makes their video look better. I have tried rendering the video as a high-quality AVI and a lower quality WMV and I still get pixellated blocky looking video at times or video of clouds that almost looks like you drew it in Paint Shop Pro due to the limited amount of colors. The video I am having issues with is here: 2008 Storm Chase Summary

 

[Adam Lucio]

Youtube deconverts most videos to save on bandwidth. Some videos have a "watch in high quality" link under them if they are loaded in a higher quality. Try clicking on that.

EDIT: I just watched you video [nice work BTW] and didnt notice the link. Im not sure what has to happen to make the link show up. I know on my videos its there for the more recent ones ive uploaded. It could be an owner only privledge?

 

[Andrew Ryan]

I don't know what exactly you mean by "high quality" (HD?) but this might be helpful.

http://vimeo.com/forums/topic:3671

I haven't tried it yet since I don't have a camcorder yet. But it should guide you in the right direction to optimizing youtube videos.

 

[cdcollura]

Good day all...

It depends on the SOURCE file as well.

Youtube transcodes video files. Often from one format, like quicktime, WMV, etc ... To an intermediate format (on their system), then finally flash-video (Youtube's format).

Some files do not "transcode" well during the process. I have had very good luck with WMV (windows media) files, but not good with Quicktime / MP4 (even though they LOOKED the same if one was WMV and the other MP4)!

You have to experiment as well.

 

[Phil Kurimski]

Thanks for the responses. By high-quality I mean the 900 MB AVI file looks much better quality-wise on my computer than the 49 MB WMV...however on youtube the WMV file actually looks better. Very odd. Despite the better looking WMV it still looks blocky in places.

 

[Tarmo Tanilsoo]

I think the high quality function does not work with WMV's. I was unable to post high quality to Youtube until I started uploading video in MPEG.

 

[David Drummond]

I think the high quality function does not work with WMV's. I was unable to post high quality to Youtube until I started uploading video in MPEG.

I posted mine with wmv's and they have the high quality link.

 

[Simon Andersen]

Format

Here's a neat little trick I learned from someone over at Youtube: Add &fmt=18 to the end of the url, in the browsers address-field. And hit enter.

 

[Chris Kennedy]

I cant figrure out the quality issue either. Last night I upload the same video in divx mp4 and mov. Divx had the best quality so I try to upload a divx film today and the quality is absolute junk! I suggest vimeo as well

 

[David Drummond]

export your video to WMV 1024 for the web, upload to youtube
I do all mine like that with no issues.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

The high quality link comes in when you upload a higher resolution as best I can tell. So if you upload a 320x240 video, you won't get a high quality link. If you do a 720x480 or higher, you do.

I typically output to H.264 for youtube. Seems to show up the best on youtube.

 

[Phil Kurimski]

Here's a neat little trick I learned from someone over at Youtube: Add &fmt=18 to the end of the url, in the browsers address-field. And hit enter.

That did the trick Simon...thanks for the information. The video url with that appended to the end is much better quality:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PluLcLpOE10&fmt=18

Strange that there is no link to a higher quality video on the standard video but appending &fmt=18 at the end works.

Thanks!
Phil

 

[Simon Andersen]

I'm glad to have been of help. Originally when I found out about this I looked around on the 'net and found some pages detailling the Youtube format issue:

http://blog.jimmyr.com/High_Quality_on_Youtube_11_2008.php

Apparently you can utilize a whole host of formats, but I'm not very confident in pointing out a better one than 18. I don't get why they don't just add this feature to every video, either. Maybe for now you should add the videourl + format selection to the description box?