How to export and upload to YouTube in immaculate quality?

[Topo]

Yea that’s weird I don’t know

So...just to recap, let’s see if I have this right. Transcode the footage to ProRes, or DNx to preserve it’s highest quality. Exporting from that codec, to the YouTube format, causes the least possible quality loss, after their process further compresses it.

 

[brett8883]

So...just to recap, let’s see if I have this right. Transcode the footage to ProRes, or DNx to preserve it’s highest quality. Exporting from that codec, to the YouTube format, causes the least possible quality loss, after their process further compresses it.

No you should have compressed it sufficiently so they don’t have to compress it again that was the whole idea.

 

[brett8883]

When you play the file that you ultimately uploaded to YouTube with QuickTime player does it say it’s 1080p?

 

[Topo]

When you play the file that you ultimately uploaded to YouTube with QuickTime player does it say it’s 1080p?

Yep

 

[Topo]

When you play the file that you ultimately uploaded to YouTube with QuickTime player does it say it’s 1080p?

Yep, and I should add, I export it from premiere using the YouTube 1080p preset. That’s the file I upload.

 

[brett8883]

Yep, and I should add, I export it from premiere using the YouTube 1080p preset. That’s the file I upload.

So you imported the DNx file back into Premier?

 

[brett8883]

So you imported the DNx file back into Premier?

Nvm that doesn’t matter. Try uploading it again maybe it’s som weird YouTube thing

 

[Elude]

I shoot in 4K on my zoom. I am too lazy for lots of post production. Which is why I bought the zooom.

I will load iVideo and maybe do a minute of editing and then publish to YouTube in 4K. Seems beautiful to me.

 

[jedpause]

I'm comparing my MAir uploads to stuff like this:

.. but once I export and upload, some parts look a bit mushy.

......, but theres blur on the edge of the bushes in the beginning, when it is closing in on the rock formation.

Maybe this is just the nature of uploading to YT, but I thought I'd see if I could glean any tricks from anyone here. thanks

I have the Mavic Pro, and from these forums followed the advice to set sharpness to +1 when recording... makes a huge difference to the original crispness... I appreciate your issue seems to be in the post YT compression, I am only sharing this as it's one step to a better source....

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

I shoot in 4K on my zoom. I am too lazy for lots of post production. Which is why I bought the zooom.

I will load iVideo and maybe do a minute of editing and then publish to YouTube in 4K. Seems beautiful to me.

I do similar. However, I think I’m doing something wrong on the YouTube upload. For a 3.5 minute 4K video, it takes 4 or 5 hours to upload. That doesn’t seem right. What’s your experience?

 

[Topo]

I do similar. However, I think I’m doing something wrong on the YouTube upload. For a 3.5 minute 4K video, it takes 4 or 5 hours to upload. That doesn’t seem right. What’s your experience?

What application are you using to export a file for YouTube? What size is the resulting file? How is the speed of your internet service? I used Adobe Premiere. I use their preset to export for YT. The last time I used a 1080p preset, and the file size was about 250 MB. Obviously, the larger the file, and slower your internet, the longer it will take to upload.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

What application are you using to export a file for YouTube? What size is the resulting file? How is the speed of your internet service? I used Adobe Premiere. I use their preset to export for YT. The last time I used a 1080p preset, and the file size was about 250 MB. Obviously, the larger the file, and slower your internet, the longer it will take to upload.

Thanks for getting back to me.
I've got a 10mbs internet connection, Dell laptop w/ Core i7 processor, using PowerDirector 17 for post, generating an MPEG-4 4K 3840 x 2160/30p (50 Mbps). Last night I generated Lake Michigan Ice (roughly 1.5 minute video), resulting in 671,471 kb file which I uploaded to YouTube directly. I use YouTube Studio (beta). I do it directly because PowerDirector does not give me an option to specify an icon, although it does offer the capability to render and upload directly to YouTube. That file took at least 3 to 3 1/2 hours. And my wife was not watching Netflix.

Obviously I'm doing something wrong or unnecessary. I say that because guys like 51 Drones upload long videos all the time. That would take me two days!

 

[brett8883]

Thanks for getting back to me.
I've got a 10mbs internet connection, Dell laptop w/ Core i7 processor, using PowerDirector 17 for post, generating an MPEG-4 4K 3840 x 2160/30p (50 Mbps). Last night I generated Lake Michigan Ice (roughly 1.5 minute video), resulting in 671,471 kb file which I uploaded to YouTube directly. I use YouTube Studio (beta). I do it directly because PowerDirector does not give me an option to specify an icon, although it does offer the capability to render and upload directly to YouTube. That file took at least 3 to 3 1/2 hours. And my wife was not watching Netflix.

Obviously I'm doing something wrong or unnecessary. I say that because guys like 51 Drones upload long videos all the time. That would take me two days!

A 50 mbps video is WAY too high a bit-rate for youtube. You really want to get that down to like 10mbps. Also your internet speed is well on the slow side. Your download speed is usually many times faster than your upload speed unless you have fiber optics.

Go to this website to check your “upload” speed.

Here’s my test results to give yourself some kind of reference point. I do have fiber optics so that’s way my upload is faster than my download something you probably can’t expect.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

A 50 mbps video is WAY too high a bit-rate for youtube. You really want to get that down to like 10mbps. Also your internet speed is well on the slow side. Your download speed is usually many times faster than your upload speed unless you have fiber optics.

Go to this website to check your “upload” speed.

Here’s my test results to give yourself some kind of reference point. I do have fiber optics so that’s way my upload is faster than my download something you probably can’t expect. View attachment 65611

Most excellent help! I just didn’t know what to choose in Bitrate list. Thanks fo the advice... give yourself a raise.

 

[Kilrah]

50Mbps is perfectly fine for 4K youtube if you want the viewer to benefit from a high quality experience. Obviously your internet connection is a bit on the slow side for such large files so you may want to reduce a bit. Or not.

Youtube will reencode the video with a variable bitrate that can go up to about 20Mbps, and for best results you want that to be done with a source file that is significantly above to avoid degrading a degraded source. 40-50 is good. 10 is too low and will turn to mush once reprocessed by youtube.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

A 50 mbps video is WAY too high a bit-rate for youtube. You really want to get that down to like 10mbps. Also your internet speed is well on the slow side. Your download speed is usually many times faster than your upload speed unless you have fiber optics.

Go to this website to check your “upload” speed.

Here’s my test results to give yourself some kind of reference point. I do have fiber optics so that’s way my upload is faster than my download something you probably can’t expect. View attachment 65611

Well there you are! Slow! I can probably pay more for a faster speed. I need to contact Centurytel. I’ll run a test video with a reduced bit rate as instructed.

 

[brett8883]

50Mbps is perfectly fine for 4K youtube if you want the viewer to benefit from a high quality experience. Obviously your internet connection is a bit on the slow side for such large files so you may want to reduce a bit. Or not.

Youtube will reencode the video with a variable bitrate that can go up to about 20Mbps, and for best results you want that to be done with a source file that is significantly above to avoid degrading a degraded source. 40-50 is good. 10 is too low and will turn to mush once reprocessed by youtube.

In this thread we have established that compressing the video file BEFORE uploading to YouTube produces better results and fixed the OPs issue. My point about the 50 mbps bit rate is that YouTube will need to compress that to about 10-20 mbps. By compressing that himself he will lower his upload time and get a better quality compression.

I don’t think we disagree on anything here @Kilrah I just wanted to clarify for anybody who sees this but didn’t read the entire thread.

YouTube will NOT need to recompress or encode a file that is already properly compressed and encoded to the correct codec.

Handbrake is a good free tool for compressing and transcoding. It has YouTube presets that can encode any video file into the proper codec for YouTube. By first outputting your edited video into an intermediate codec like ProRes or DNx and then transcoding into a YouTube preset you allow the program you are using to compress (ie handbrake or Adobe Media Encoder) to do a better job compressing in terms of quality and size.

 

[Kilrah]

In this thread we have established that compressing the video file BEFORE uploading to YouTube produces better results

Where? I see none of that. Just that some encoding settings got better results than otehrs, but it's pretty normal and there's more to it than bitrate.

YouTube will NOT need to recompress or encode a file that is already properly compressed and encoded to the correct codec.

That's incorrect, Youtube ALWAYS recompresses. since that degrades quality you want that do be done from the best possible source since a loss from a good source is better than a loss from a bad source.

Upload whatever you think is the "right format" to youtube, and use a tool to download the result - can guarantee you it won't be the same.

 

[RadioFlyerMan]

I tried an experiment by taking my 3.5 minute video I was complaining about and reducing it down to 1920 x 1080 30p 16 Mbps. It’s size went from 1+ gig to 352 megabytes. Naturally it uploaded faster in about 1.5 hours.
As to quality, I don’t have the eye to tell. Some artifacts are inherently in the original video. One could say “it’s good enough for who it’s for.”

My real bottle neck is my internet service, and that’s what I should work on next. Regardless, this whole thread helped me identify my issues. Thank you all.

 

[brett8883]

Where? I see none of that. Just that some encoding settings got better results than otehrs, but it's pretty normal and there's more to it than bitrate.


That's incorrect, Youtube ALWAYS recompresses. since that degrades quality you want that do be done from the best possible source since a loss from a good source is better than a loss from a bad source.

Upload whatever you think is the "right format" to youtube, and use a tool to download the result - can guarantee you it won't be the same.

I did as you asked I actually uploaded 4 different ways and it didn’t seem to make a difference one way or the other. I think the quality of the way I said to do it is marginally better but that could very we just be my subconscious discrimination hah.

I didn’t edit this file and maybe that’s the difference. But if anyone reading this thread wants to compare themselves here is the same video uploaded 4 different ways.