Photos for video to be used on YouTube

[Lucief]

Hi
Am in need of some help desperately.

Ulead VS version
I am using ulead VS 10 and have been using this for the past month, so am still relatively new.

What am I trying to do?
I am doing a video as a trailer for a project I am doing.
All contributors have passed me digital PHOTOS with which to create the video. I did not resize or edit some of the photos which were passed to me, so some were a mixture of eg 700x500 pixels, others 1200 x 800 pixels etc.
I intend to post this video on Youtube

What happened?
After creating my 'video' using a combo of digital pics and transition pages , I exported this and created a .wmv file.
(I did not think or consider about exporting it in a different format, which may have been a mistake...-see below)
It looked great when I played it on my pc on the fullscreen size.
However; I've just uploaded the finished wmv file onto Youtube and it looks dreadful in the small screen size.... so much so that I have had to remove it.
Photos are completely blurred.

Questions

1: When I read this youtube help centre gumph, it says they:
"recommend the MPEG4 (Dixx,Xvid) format at 320x240 resolution with MP3 audio'
Clearly, as I exported into a .wmv file format, this was my first mistake (?)

2: If it is the case then that I should have exported in an MPEG4 format so as to use on YouTube, (ie, not the .wmv file as I did)which of the following ulead VS10 MPEG4 options should I use?

MPEG-4 ipod
MPEG-4 PSP
MPEG-4 PDA/PMP
MPEG-4 Mobile phone

3: Photos
I am also wondering whether the sizing of the original photos I used is partially causing a problem here ? As mentioned, I simply dropped the digital pics in their original untouched/un-resized state into ulead. When I played the .wmv file it looked fine (albeit on a large screen version) so I did not even think about potential sizing problems.
Should I now go back into my original working project and resize all the photos I will be using to create the video? How? or rather, to what recommended size?
Should I resize all the pics I am using to "320x240 resolution" - or?
Or do I even need to bother about resizing photos if the 'problem' was that I exported into an incorrect format for youtube - ie, wmv instead of their recommend MPEG4?

I almost had a heart attack when I uploaded this onto youtube last night. It looked so dreadful - ie blurry and people looked like heffalumps.
If anyone can point me in the right direction, I would really,really appreciate it.

thanks,
Lucie

[Ron P.]

Welcome to the forums Lucie..,

First I want to thank you for taking the time and effort, to read the Sticky at the top of the forum, and provide the information accordingly. That is greatly appreciated

Of the 4 MPEG-4 options provided in VS, the iPod & PDA/PMP give you the 320 x 240 resolution that YouTube recommends.

DivX is another choice recommended by YouTube. While I have not used the above MPEG-4, I have used DivX, and it does quite well for this. You can check out the DivX codec HERE.

With regards to resizing your photos, if you are not doing any zooms that zoom way in on your photos, then yes resizing using an image editor like PhotoImpact, PhotoExplorer, closer to the resolution you will be using is recommended. However several users have no problems doing as you, just dropping the photos onto the timeline and using as is. The problem you have experienced, may just be the WMV codec.

[Black Lab]

I use the standard Ulead wmv template of 320 x 240 for my YouTube videos and they look fine.

[MrA]

You Tube, in itself, will re-compile your images/video for their format, so, you take another hit there too (on quality)..