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Best YouTube quality

akdrone

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A recent post regarding tele lens quality discussed some issues with still images and I began to post this but this is really about video. It may apply more to some of the older drones but it also applies to those that shoot 4K but output HD. Why would you ever do that? One reason is to be able to crop. If you shoot 4k and know you only want to output HD you can zoom into an HD area of a 4K video without losing quality. You therefore, in effect, have a longer telephoto ability. The other reason is to save bandwidth for sharing. In any case, The sharpness of the final YouTube video is obviously affected by a variety of things down the workflow pipe. One of the stranger things is that better youtube results are obtained by uploading 4K video even if you shoot at a lower resolution. It is better to convert HD to 4K and upload as 4K than it is to just uploading the original HD. I can’t recall the explanation for why that is the case but I viewed a fairly long video explaining that entire thing. I‘m always shooting 4K so I have not tested this out but the explanation made sense when I watched the video. Had anyone told me this before viewing the explanation video I would have gone into an explanation as to why that made no sense. (As an aside, DNG stills should always undergo sharpening.) I wish I had a reference for the original video that explained this because, as I said, it doesn’t make logical sense to me but has to do with how youtube treats video so uploading an HD video will result in a lesser quality youtube video than one shot HD, then upgraded to 4K. As I often say, “it’s all voodoo magic”. ( I actually used that phrase just this AM when my wife couldn’t get on the net here at home. It was a 10 second fix that made no sense)
 
A recent post regarding tele lens quality discussed some issues with still images and I began to post this but this is really about video. It may apply more to some of the older drones but it also applies to those that shoot 4K but output HD. Why would you ever do that? One reason is to be able to crop. If you shoot 4k and know you only want to output HD you can zoom into an HD area of a 4K video without losing quality. You therefore, in effect, have a longer telephoto ability. The other reason is to save bandwidth for sharing. In any case, The sharpness of the final YouTube video is obviously affected by a variety of things down the workflow pipe. One of the stranger things is that better youtube results are obtained by uploading 4K video even if you shoot at a lower resolution. It is better to convert HD to 4K and upload as 4K than it is to just uploading the original HD. I can’t recall the explanation for why that is the case but I viewed a fairly long video explaining that entire thing. I‘m always shooting 4K so I have not tested this out but the explanation made sense when I watched the video. Had anyone told me this before viewing the explanation video I would have gone into an explanation as to why that made no sense. (As an aside, DNG stills should always undergo sharpening.) I wish I had a reference for the original video that explained this because, as I said, it doesn’t make logical sense to me but has to do with how youtube treats video so uploading an HD video will result in a lesser quality youtube video than one shot HD, then upgraded to 4K. As I often say, “it’s all voodoo magic”. ( I actually used that phrase just this AM when my wife couldn’t get on the net here at home. It was a 10 second fix that made no sense)
What do you use to edit? I use DaVinci Resolve Studio. (still learning)
 
In regards to best quality on Youtube. First thing to remember is that Youtube is constantly changing and upgrading, and what may have been a few years ago could have changed. So with that in mind; as of the last few years, Any 4K video uploaded to YT was given a different compression than standard 1080 or lower resolution videos. 4k was given priority and less compression, while 1080 was given a different higher (lower res) compression.

AVC1 vs VP09
Below are two screen shots of the 'stats for nerds' dialog box that can be brought up on any YT video by right clicking inside the player while the video is playing.

CODEC AVC1
Stats.jpg



CODEC VP09
NerdStats.jpg Resolution.jpg

We all know that when a 4K video is uploaded to YT, after processing the video can be displayed in resolutions from 144 on up through 6K depending on original upload size. Where the difference comes in; is that a 1080 version of a 4K video is better and less compressed than a standard 1080 upload.

I've also seen that this newer codec is being applied to high frame rate videos as well as highly watched videos. I have some 15 year old videos with 100s of thousands of views that were originally shot in 480 unfortunately because that was before HD was as prevalent as later on. But these videos have now received the VP09 codec.

So keep in mind things on Youtube are always changing, but for sure as a rule of thumb: upload the highest resolution possible. And if quality video is your thing, learn how to encode, and get away from those presets found in every editor. Just because your uploading to YouTube, does not mean you use the preset for YouTube.

I make sure my videos are no more compressed than straight out of the camera. In other words: If a minute of 4K video from your drone is 1gb, then after - editing and adding corrections, and maybe a title then exported for upload to YT - if that video ready for upload is still one minute long it should still be at or above 1gb or you're leaving resolution on the floor.
 
In regards to best quality on Youtube. First thing to remember is that Youtube is constantly changing and upgrading…
…So keep in mind things on Youtube are always changing, but for sure as a rule of thumb: upload the highest resolution possible. And if quality video is your thing, learn how to encode, and get away from those presets found in every editor. Just because your uploading to YouTube, does not mean you use the preset for YouTube.

I make sure my videos are no more compressed than straight out of the camera. In other words: If a minute of 4K video from your drone is 1gb, then after - editing and adding corrections, and maybe a title then exported for upload to YT - if that video ready for upload is still one minute long it should still be at or above 1gb or you're leaving resolution on the floor.
My experience in researching and benchmarking codecs, codec settings, and how YT and other hosting services encode for distribution leads me to the same conclusions as @Ty Pilot.

The better resolution and higher bitrate your uploads are, the better these services do at encoding all their distribution resolutions, including lower rez.

On the other hand, if your upload speed is low it may be that a 5 or 20GB upload is just not attainable. For many years of pro video work my upload speed was only 1.4Mb/s (that’s megabits per second, not megabytes. I did many several hour or overnight uploads, with maybe only a 60% success rate. Now on fiber connectivity, I’m getting somewhere north of 780GB/s (gigabytes per second), and don’t worry any more, and do pretty much what Ty Pilot wrote..

If you find that upload speed is a meaningful bottleneck, the next step is to (sadly) further compress your upload file. h.265 is your friend here; higher quality at lower bitrates. Handbrake is your friend too, a state of the (quality) art encoder for h.264 and h.265.

In any of these lower-bitrate approaches, it’s usually best to maintain the maximum resolution you can…

**edit**
PS. I too have never found that a “Youtube Preset” on an editor was worthwhile. They tend to be super low quality, and frequently lower resolution.
 
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Having work with some experts in image processing they always told me that downscaling produced better results than upscaling. This made sense to me since algorithms can interpolate data better for downscaling rather than inventing data for upscaling. Generally I shoot in 4K and process at 4K in Resolve, but upload at HD for YT, primarily to reduce upload time and save on bandwidth. If there is an issue with quality I would have to believe it is a YT compression artifact related to the CODEC.

On occasion I would like to try shooting at higher than 4K and uploading to YT at 4K, but I have yet to figure out how to upload to YT at 4K. Is this a YT setting which I am missing that enables this?
 
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On occasion I would like to try shooting at higher than 4K and uploading to YT at 4K, but I have yet to figure out how to upload to YT at 4K. Is this a YT setting which I am missing that enables this?
YouTube will recognize any resolution at the point of upload, there is nothing you need to do differently
 
I use Final Cut Pro.
I use Final Cut Pro as well. I wouldn't use anything different. MacBook Pro and Final Cut Pro are very robust and powerful together.
 
I use Final Cut Pro as well. I wouldn't use anything different. MacBook Pro and Final Cut Pro are very robust and powerful together.
Yup. the magnetic timeline is awesome. Mac Studio Max 32GB and 2TB drive on the way with two Apple Studio Displays already delivered. All I shoot is 4K and my 2017iMac has to play with it things take a while.... The final product is no better....
 
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