hi,

http://www.youtube.com/user/mwdeaf9094

please go to the above site.  you'll see two videos - one is called Gallaudet university campus scenes and the other is avid test.

raw footage for both is great but when you watch thm above they look grainy.  i tried exporting from avid using MPG4 but it looks like my avid xpress does not have that for encoding.  do i have to buy MPG4?  is there a place to get it?  the first movie is AVI but that looks grainy and the 2nd is mov and that one does too.  i'm trying to put clean looking videos on youtube.

thanks.

Clean looking video and Youtube don't fit together in the same sentence. Youtube recompresses anything you send to them.

Did you follow their tech specs for uploading?

You can read the following link for info:

http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=91450&topic=10526

thanks for replying.  i did all of the stuff below:

• MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format
• MP3 audio
• Video resolution: 480x360 or higher [mine was 640 x 480]
  
• Frame Rate: 24fps or higher [mine was 30 fps]

but notice the first one - MPEG4.  is this MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format built into avid xpress pro?  or do i have to upgrade or buy?

if it's already there and when i export, which export setting should i choose to get the MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format?

thanks - mike

Deaf Mike:

is this MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format built into avid xpress pro?  or do i have to upgrade or buy?

we had that in another thread before with no conclusion yet, as far as i know. i carry the mc-dongle between my workstation and my laptop, on the workstation i have the mpeg4-option for windows media and quicktime, on the laptop i haven't and i dont know why.

to me it seems clear the codecs and export options depend from other software installed on the computers.

JP Shook, Director of Internet Development for Digital Juice had a great suggestion in the September 2008 edition of Sorenson Media Newsletter. Reprinted below

Ideal Settings For YouTube's New High Quality Option
By JP Shook, Director of Internet Development, Digital Juice Inc.

Now that YouTube have started offering higher quality videos, the old settings for encoding your videos should be tossed out the window. This tip will walk you through the steps required to compress your video for YouTube so it will look great.

First, make sure your video is exported to the highest quality possible. Next, open Squeeze and expand the MPEG-4 presets. Click the "HQ" preset and copy the preset by finding copy under the audience tab or clicking the copy icon. This will create a duplicate preset that you can title "YouTubeHQ". Set your video data rate to 4000kbps, encoding method to 2-pass VBR and resolution to 640x480 (4:3) or 640x360 (16:9).

During testing I found that by increasing the data rate up to 4000kbps produced a higher end data rate with YouTube's high quality encoded version. Next, set your audio data rate to 256kbps. You can now save the preset, apply it to your video, and click "Squeeze It".

Using the higher resolution and data rates will ensure that your videos look great at the current high quality options and be ready for any future increases in quality or resolution offered by YouTube.

outpostbc:

Clean looking video and Youtube don't fit together in the same sentence. Youtube recompresses anything you send to them.

Are you so sure about that?

Check out my YouTube page, specifically the playlist relating to HQ material.

In there you'll find various HQ upload tests along with all the codec parameters I used to get them looking that crisp. There are even two full-length 3D animation films from the Blender institute that show you can get some really good stuff on YouTube.

Mind that if you're a YouTube account holder to set your Account > Video Playback Preferences to Always play Higher-Quality content. For those without accounts just passing by, remember to click the "Watch In High Quality" option.

I'm personally pleased with my recent photograph slideshow from around Scotland. That upload turned out pretty damn well.

(If I'm feeling up to it, and can find the energy, I'll do a Camtasia video tutorial showing the flow direct from within Avid > YouTube)

malefunktion:

 

(If I'm feeling up to it, and can find the energy, I'll do a Camtasia video tutorial showing the flow direct from within Avid > YouTube)

Sounds like a great addition to Community Tips & Tutorials! Click the blue question mark button to get started.

Adam Kranitz:

Sounds like a great addition to Community Tips & Tutorials! Click the blue question mark button to get started.

I've started work on scripting the tutorial. There's a lot to cover to ensure people have an understanding of what's involved. For instance, I certainly haven't been able to export directly from Xpress Pro to a Custom Quicktime file that uses AAC audio encoding or MP3 encoding - which is vital to the process.

Also, I've done various custom Quicktime export tests to MPEG4 material and they only encode using ONE CPU thread.

For this reason, I am basing the tutorial on the following workflow:

Avid (or any NLE for that matter) > Export same-as-source to preserve definition > Use MPEG Streamclip (free and good for both MAC/Windows users) to create the YouTube-compatible file.

MPEG Streamclip bumps up all CPU cores for MPEG4 compression, whereas my Avid never does. (Only uses both cores for heavy DNxHD material and the usual FX stuff).

I personally like the idea of using a free standalone product for the final compressing stage because it opens the advice in the tutorial to users of a variety of NLE packages and presents settings that can be carried over into Squeeze or pretty much any other encoding package of choice.

I'll keep you posted.

MPEG Streamclip is a great app, it's gotten me out of a couple jams converting wonky video files from low-end DV cameras.

A couple of other resources to be aware of.

Avid KnowledgeBase Article: How to Send to YouTube

Expert Connections Blog: How To Do Multi-Core Compression in Sorenson Squeeze

Cheers for the links Adam.

The PDF for Sending to Youtube is a bit outdated, and the settings are not conducive to getting the new High-quality stuff onto YouTube.

320x240 isn't any good any more, and as I've mentioned in a previous YouTube thread... exporting uncompressed PCM audio adds a considerable amount of data to the end filesize (unduly I might add).

Multi-core compressing in Squeeze will be very useful for those with Squeeze (which I don't have), but the settings in my tutorial translate directly to any Quicktime-capable export app (except Avid which goes all single-core for MPEG4 Quicktime files.)

Why on earth can't Avid (during a custom Export option) use all available cores and show me all the possible audio codec options for Quicktime? MPEG streamclip coughs up AAC or MP3 audio AND multi-core processing whereas my Avid under NO scenario will ever show me either, and all MPEG Streamclip is doing is accessing the same underlying Quicktime backend?

Anyway, the tutorial will cover the importance of bitrates, and the difference between using VBR or CBR for different project types (photographic slideshows will dip a VBR file's bitrate because nothing is really happening, and if it dips too low, YouTube rejects it for their "Higher-Quality" feature).

I'll see how it all comes together. (It'll be my first ever video tutorial, so I'm afraid to use my voice!!! LOL)

I was in a simi panic this weekend, trying to upload a video for a contest, and ran into this post.

I used what Adam posted from the Squeeze guy, and got a pretty good quality upload that even plays in HQ. But I think it could be a bit better, I just ran out of time to play with the settings any more than that.  (I think I should have more keyframes, instead of 1 every 300)

Its here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSL2gPBeZKU if anyone wants to see it. Be kind, it was only a 2 hour shoot with 3 people ;)

Thanks to Adam and others in this post, I now have a good workflow to transfer to Youtube. I do want to add an audio tip given to me by one of my colleagues (thanks Jeff).

We assume that whatever video and audio codecs we use to compress our media, that youtube will reprocess it again with what ever they want. Given that compressing a compressed file is never the best option, there is at least the option to send youtube original wav audio so that youtube’s compression is the only compression. The answer is to use the Matroska file container (.mkv), which will package up your mp4 and wav file for uploading to youtube (or playing with VLC).

http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/

So my workflow is as follows:
Edit with Avid (HDTX145), and export a QT Ref.
Then Sorenson, set to the mp4  options as Adam referenced JP Shook’s advice.
    4000kbps, 2 pass vbr, 640 x 360, no audio
Now open the MKV program and just point to the new mp4 and the wav from Avid’s QT ref. In a few seconds it writes a new file, and off to you tube.

This is an example of live sound recorded at a local night club (with too little light).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQc6Nk77xNs

Yeah, there are many ways to get a suitable High-Quality clip onto YouTube, and whilst I agree in principle that it isn't usually best to compress an audio stream - YouTube will eventually recompress everything anyway... and that same thinking applies to the video side of things.

Using uncompressed stereo PCM 16-bit 48KHz audio alongside compressed video means that the audio stream would be adding an significant amount of additional data, thus prolonging the upload process each time.

Since we compress video to save space whilst preserving it visually as much as possible, it only makes sense to compress the audio in a suitable manner too. A 320Kb/s 48KHz MP3 or a 256+Kb/s 48KHz AAC file is audibily more than sufficient when you know in advance that YouTube will create their own AAC and MP3 variations below that quality bar.

If bandwidth and speed were never an issue (which they can be for some people with varying broadband/DSL access packages and quota caps), most folk would go around recommending the use of uncompressed audio and video all the time.

Just my 2p.