Uploading to YouTube - video quality

Delzhand

I've been having some problems recently - I'm fairly new to YouTube (at least in the uploading department), and my videos keep turning into garbage when I upload them.

I've got a game project - it runs at a smooth 60 fps, 800x600 resolution. I typically record a video segment in fraps - about 2-2.5 minutes long (I only record at 30 fps). Then I'll use VirtualDub to compress the file using the xvid codec, and half the size. The resulting file is usually pretty clear.

But when I upload it to YouTube, the quality just takes a huge dive. I understand that transcoding to FLV is going to impact the quality a bit, but I see videos with better picture quality all the time.

Here's the most recent example, which happens to be the worst offender by far. It's completely unrecognizeable:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GgivYkK68s

The settings I used are Advanced Simple @ L5>Single Pass>388kbps.

Any ideas on how to get a clearer picture? Can I somehow save directly as FLV to assist YouTube's automation?

cyphr

I don't know anything about getting a better upload quality, but, if you tack "&fmt=18" on to the end of any Youtube URL, the quality of the video gets somewhat better.

ASimPerson

What resolution is the original encoding at? Youtube's native resolution is 320x240, so your videos should be uploaded that that resolution or higher.

Also, investigate alternative sites, like dailymotion or vimeo.

Marty81

Things I upload in xvid tend to get turned to blocky shit (like yours!) by the youtube encoder. Try another codec, like wmv or h264.

CailYoung

Too much motion. That will never compress well through the Youtube Machine; you could try making a 15fps video, and you also try pre-shrinking it to 320x240, the scaler they use isn't the greatest.

Keybored

+1 vote for ASimPerson's recommendation of Vimeo. They need to put a bit of work into their search algorithm (it never turns up what I want easily, even when I know what I want is on there) but they make up for it with their excellent video quality. Hopefully they won't end up like Stage6 though...

FyreWulff

Usually you actually want to encode at the highest quality you can, then upload that to Youtube.

Super compressed original file sent through more compression on their servers = ends up crap


High quality file sent through their server = turns out a lot better

Delzhand

Thanks for all the advice - knowing what I do about how video compression works, I think Cail probably nailed it - too much motion. Compression looks for blocks of consistent color and with a double scrolling transparent background it's not going to find any.