The Irony of the YT Algorithm

[Desert Drone Works]

This is somewhat tongue in cheek, so please allow me some latitude.

Anyone else find it funny that sometimes you spend hours and hours trying to capture the perfect shot to share with your YT or Instagram audience... and the clip that gains the most traction is a YT short of the Mavic 3 Pro using its RTH feature?

I tested the same nonsense again with the Air 3 RTH and they have similar views.

No I won't be hanging it up from a capture perspective, but it's hilarious what pops off and what is a dud. Have you all experienced the same?

Hope you all have a great week!

 

[SmilingOgre]

YouTube, Instagram, you name it. No idea what forces and mindsets drive likes. Not going to spend any time figuring it out either. I use YouTube for an occasional post on a forum and usually make them unlisted. Instagram I use to share with a few friends and relatives. Not interested in opening my doors to scammers, hecklers, and people who do not want to do their own research. Life has enough unavoidable annoyances to subject myself to that.

 

[GFields]

Yes, I have noticed that Yt shorts get more hits but bring less money because of the length.

 

[shb]

It doesn't suprise me that YouTube videos that give you information on how to fly your drone would get more hits. Not that either of these shorts would fall into that category. People want information on how to safely fly their drones.
I doubt most pilots spend much time scanning YouTube for drone flights from other people. I don't. The drone videos I put on YouTube are probably a lot more interesting to me then to other people.

 

[Dave Maine]

YouTube video quality is not the greatest. VIMEO is far superior if fed a 4K h265 original. Pilots spend a lot of money and time to capture the highest quality video and then lose a lot of it on a YouTube re encode.

 

[Ty Pilot]

I started with Youtube over 15 years ago doing motorcycle 'how to' tutorials. I never really paid attention to views or likes until I started getting messages from Youtube that I could monetize but I never did. Those videos have probably close to a million views now.

I started doing similar with drone tutorials five years ago but again; never monetized because I already had a business. To monetize a channel and keep viewership up is easily as much work as owning a business because that is in fact what it is - a lot of work.

And just for the record: over the fifteen years I have been on YT there have been a multitude of changes that make it a superb video platform. The old belief that You tube's quality is less than (for instance) Vimeo, is a myth and is propagated by people who don't understand encoding and how to maximize their uploads for the highest playback quality. Consequently this is a very large portion of Youtube posters (myself included for my first four or five years).

The algorithms YT uses are tools that one needs to understand if they want to build a paying channel, but like I said, be prepared for a very steep learning curve, and a lot of work.

But I do agree, when you make videos, you can pour your heart and sole into a video that turns out to be a dud, while a video you just throw together can strike a chord with your viewers; take off a go viral. It really boils down to knowing who your viewers are and why they're watching what you do. If you can find that - lock in on it - and as the old sayings - wash, rinse and repeat.

 

[SmilingOgre]

YouTube video quality is not the greatest. VIMEO is far superior if fed a 4K h265 original. Pilots spend a lot of money and time to capture the highest quality video and then lose a lot of it on a YouTube re encode.

Agreed. As a streaming platform they need to pull the bit rate way down to ensure smooth streaming on with most Ip providers. Obviously this impacts image quality. 1080p looks like 720 and 4k looks like 1080p as compared to presentation in an NLE. I'm not sure everybody catches on to this. I see a lot of videos posted in 1080p from birds that can produce 4k.

 

[Ty Pilot]

RE: Youtube vs Vimeo or other

I touched on encoding above as to how it relates to final quality. Here is another simple fact, most folks don't know about Youtube. Video uploaded to Youtube at 1080 resolution (or below). at 30 fps or less, is given a much higher compression rate (lower quality) than high quality video uploaded at uncompressed 4K or higher. You can see the compression (VP09) used in "Nerd Stats" as seen below.




Most folks that edit their video (even for 4K), render out their video from a given NLE using that brands preinstalled render presets. After all, when you see a preset that says "Youtube 4K" one might think that is the way to go - not so, because that preset is designed for a fast render (hence lower bit rate). So even before they've uploaded they left quality on the cutting room floor so to speak.

For those that still think you can't have good results on YT. Here is a professionally produced video in 4K - on Youtube. If you have the ability to watch in 4k, please do, and see how this compares to anything on any other platform. In particular look for the typical juddering, stuttering or blotchiness in the sky and around transition lines that abound in poorly rendered videos.