YouTube: what settings for best quality?

[babel]

What would you recommend as settings to produce best quality videos on YouTube?

There is a vast difference in quality of the clips - some even look very good on YouTube and I'd appreciate any advice on what settings you should use to improve the quality. (avi/wmv/mpg/..., frame rates, codec,..... - anything really that will improve quality)

The first thing is of course to have a good source material but given that what should one choose to render a video for YouTube with VideoStudio 10.

(I have been using this: DivX codec, 320x240, 24fps, avi but am not convinced it's optimal)

[Ron P.]

One of the problems with using DivX is that it is a highly compressed format. If you view it without further compression the quality is quite good. The downside with YouTube is that it will recode the video to FLV (Flash Video) to be streamed via their servers.

So that means that the DivX video will be recoded and as you know, suffers a tremendous loss in quality. I don't know if they accept FLV files, I need to try it I guess.

YouTube recommends

* MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format
* 640x480 resolution (* most updated recommendation)
* MP3 audio
* 30 frames per second

I've also noticed that after YouTube processes the file, it is not 640 x 480, but ends up being 425 x 355. So start with the highest they accept or recommend, 640 x 480.

Edited
I've managed to upload an FLV file to YouTube. I converted a DV (avi) file to FLV. It's not ready to be viewed yet. As soon as it is, I'll post the results.

I ran about 4 different files up to YouTube:

• Converted DV to FLV
• Same, WMV Zune HQ 320 x 240
• Same, WMV Zune HQ 640 x 480
• Same, DivX 640 x 480

It appears to me anyway that the DivX provided better quality, faster turn-around. I was surprised that the FLV results were that poor. However it posted almost immediately.

[dmz]

There is a tutorial in this forum that talks about rendering for youtube. Should this tutorial be updated in light of the new information here?

[sjj1805]

There is a tutorial in this forum that talks about rendering for youtube. Should this tutorial be updated in light of the new information here?

Link updated

[Ron P.]

When preparing the above I worked with numerous settings, and found one that did produce even better quality, however I would not recommend using this due to the large file size, 68Mb for a 27 sec clip. The settings I used were;

Windows Media Video
1440 x 1080, 29.97fps (25fps for PAL)
Frame Based 44.100kHz, 16bit stereo
Ulead-WMV HD 1080 30p

HD Video.

The posters question sparked this experiment, which also lead to me investigating some of the video on Youtube. What intrigued me, there were several other "test" or "sample" clips, where the people were doing the same as I, posting sample clips using various compression and video formats. I found one that the person claimed to use WMV v9, 320 x 240, 30fps, 100% quality. However the video is of the quality of HD. This person used SV 7 to create the video. I mean I could view it full screen, and there were few if any artifacts. Click on the "About this Video" and notice the settings. View it full screen, and notice the fewer artifacts.

PixelPi Video Sample.

Now I also noted that while viewing on YouTube the videos default to filling the video window. There are 2 buttons on the lower right. The right-most button is for full-screen viewing while the one to its left fils or shrinks the clip withing the player. The real high-quality clips I noticed did not shrink much at all, which is similar to the WMV-HD I uploaded. So anyway my suspicion is that these high-quality clips were not using the 320 x 240 or 640 x 480, but a much larger frame size...

[dmz]

Why is this such a debatable issue? Youtube has become highly popular. I would have thought it basic common sense that the people who run Youtube would have a clear FAQ that talks about how exactly to render a video for the best quality viewing on its sight. Why is there no absolutely definable agreeable definition?