Quality Video Uploads
 

Hello,

Many who use a video camera upload videos to places like YouTube. This means compression and all sorts of things to get a file to a sensible size.

I have a JVC GZ-HD3 which produces huge files which have to be edited etc., and then squeezed into small packages; 100mb for Youtube for instance.

I am trying all sorts of options, such as saving the project file as MPEG 4, H 246 (?), and all sorts of things to try and keep the quality of the image.

Anyone know of anything special one can do to do such things; to produce first class definition and quality when it is played back on YouTube etc.? Any tips?

Thanks,

Justin

Justin,

No hints for youtube. But you might want to look at vimeo.com just for comparison of how good things can be. Its a free site which also allows upload of hd.

Stage 6?
 

'First class definition' and 'quality on YouTube' are words that should not (and probably never will be) together! You are trying the impossible but I've heard that H264 is the way to get it acceptable as they are moving to that format. Go for maximum resolution and bit rate that the 10 minute and/or 100MB limit will allow (by the way, a friend put a 11 min something video on there last week and they accepted it so this rule is a bit more flexible than I think they publically admit.)

Look at www.stage6.com

Much, much better site and quality. There are some superb HD videos (all encoded in DivX) on there already and it's all free to use for uploading/downloading etc.....

OK, Mark and Andy. My problem is hosting good teaching videos that don't take a lifetime to upload. Blip TV allows 1gb files, but the upload would take days. I just want the sites to stop mashing up my work.

I am playing with different codecs at the moment and we will see what happens. The problem with Vimeo is that they only about a small amount of upload per week, and it is full of wretched advertising.

I will have another look at Stage6, thanks.

Justin

This was discussed sometime back on digital juices forums. A couple of points that were brought up include planning and utubes policies.

If you know in advance that you will be going to utube, or a similar service plan you video to be very compression friendly. For example instead of the cool animated back ground use a static solid color. This allows the compressor to work at its best and leaves room for the detailed part of the images to be better rendered. Same applies for camera pans and tilts.

Secondly, check out uTube's director account. Last time I checked, which has been a while, a director's account was still free and removed the 10 minute and 100MB limitations. I don't recall what the new limits are, they have to be something I'm sure. The discussion came to the conclusion that the 10/100 limits were in place to keep folks from uploading entire episodes of copywrited materials and part of the director account agreement is that you will not do so. I suspect that these accounts are more closely watched for frequent violations of their policies.

Randy

Hello Randy,

Thanks for that. I did try contacting YouTube for a different account, and they said that they no longer offered them. I am stuck with encoding H.264 and hoping for less of a mess the other end. I will remember the background thing, thanks. It is just the sort of thing I need to know.

I am also considering uploading longer, more thorough videos to Vimeo, and just putting a trailer on YouTube, with a link in the info box.




Justin

Bonjour
Me also I am still searching, sor far my best quality was from divx,and avi
check those video(not mine)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYDKS_HqLpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoVkD2k4byM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9PqjMSNfkU

after these video I don't think people can say quality on youtube su...!

and those come from a $499 camera
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsOARPCNuBM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z4oAGOZ-2k

and this is a test I did this morning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESOYNOECHnA

h264 800kbps

There was a trick that people fooled youtube with the time and limit of the file but its no longer work.
so everybody is back searching.
lets keep in touch.

Wow, quality is very good on those links - never seen that on YouTube before (I have a "life" so don't spend much time looking at sites like YouTube anyway!)

I guess it was only possible with the trick you describe but I'll eat my words, I've now really seen quality video with good definition on YouTube!!!!!! :=)

other thoughts.....
 

One other thing that may help you in the planning phases. Try to shoot at the target specs. For example, if you know your only target format is uTube then why bother shooting HDV with a $10K camera only to have software try to trim it down. Use a camera that gets close to the uTube specs.

Don't upload formats that uTube has to convert. Set your NLE to output as close to the specs as possible. If the uTube converter does not have to work as hard on your video then it is less likely to butcher it.

Randy

Thanks for all those.

Randy,

I could, but I already own a JVC GZ-HD3 which is 1440 X 1080 machine. I am going to try using the H.264 codec next time and see what difference it makes. I understand that is not just the conversion that has to take place but the speed that it is done. Blip TV said that videos were less impacted by conversion if one has a pro account, as more time is given to it.

Thanks for your ideas, I appreciate it.

Justin

OK, for all those who are struggling to put up quality videos.....

I have a JVC HD3 camcorder, and the files are wonderful quality, but huge. You can see the problems I have had above, so I won't repeat what I said.

However, Corel VideoStudio 11 now reads .tod file extensions, which are the native format for the JVC camera. It handles it all well too. There is an option to save your creation in all sorts of formats, and I have been playing with them. I have settled for saving them as WMV Zune 640 X 480, as that gives fair quality.

The problem has been that I could not upload files over 100mb in the past, but now YouTube has an alternative upload system which you can choose from the right of the upload page, and you can upload a file of over 100mb, but no bigger than 1Gb. This means that if I do a ten minute video the file size, the way I save it, is around 125Mb and I can upload that to YouTube, via the alternative uploader, and get fair quality online. Others like Blip allow the same thing. YouTube's only problem is the 10 minute running time, but that is not such an issue.

I intend to upload to Vimeo as well, but their limit is 500Mb per week, so if you are making long videos you have to chop them up, and post them in parts.

Hope that helps someone who is struggling.

Justin