best workflow for YouTube

[Tom Brooks]

I did not know you could send files that are not in square pixel 4:3 format, so mine have always been sent that way–640×480. You can go with H.264 compression and AAC audio. It should be more efficient than MPEG-4/MP-3 and thus you’ll get a better trade-off between quality and upload size. One thing I don’t currently know…is there a file-size limit for each individual movie you upload or is it just a limit on the total upload batch?

There should be a good tutorial on this site and also on the Kenstone.net site on how to best compress for YT.

[Tom Brooks]

Found one on Kenstone but nothing on Cow. I coulda swore there was one.
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/you_tube_redux_gary.html

[Bill Dewald]

[Tom Brooks] “Found one on Kenstone but nothing on Cow. I coulda swore there was one.
https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/you_tube_redux_gary.html “

That’s probably the best that we’ve got – YouTube seems to change their technical bits quite often, and their instructions on posting leave a lot to be desired…

YouTube is definitely designed for the masses, not the high-end, quality seeking types like we all are…

I’ve always posted with settings based on broadband medium (in quicktime conversion):

320×240 (square), project native fps, 440 kb/s

I’ve found that Youtube can chew on files for a long time if you crank the quality (i.e. filesize) too high. I’ve seen it take over 24 hours on a file approaching the 100mb limit.

If you’re trying to time the appearance of your video in conjunction with a email blast / viral campaign, keep this in mind

– Bill

[Tom Brooks]

Bill,
Have you tried the Video application on Facebook yet? It may not have the clout of YouTube, but it has some advantages in terms of quality and format flexibility.
-Tom

[Bill Dewald]

I haven’t played with it yet – but I should –

I’ve seen some friends’ videos on there, and they look pretty good.

The thing that gives me pause about any non-YouTube solution is the viral / sharing potential. This is off the top of my head, but I think that people are more likely to watch a video on YouTube than on a social networking site like Facebook or Myspace. Non-members of the sites may be hesitant to follow the link.

Also, YouTube is where people go to find video – so the chance of viewers finding you through a search or on a chart is probably higher there. Plus, there’s the embedding, etc. Maybe Facebook does this, too.

YouTube’s quality is pretty easy to beat (even with the arbitrary “High Quality” option). So, its definitely worth looking at other options if quality is important.

[William Carr]

YouTube prefers 640×480 and I use a 1200-1400 data rate, and upload is seldom longer for me than if I was upoloading via ftp to my hosted domain website. The “high quality” playback option does what it says, relative to the quality you see as standard.

Mortimer says in both cases the results look “pretty good”. For a free mass market service where you can maintain your own channel of content, YT is what it is.

Major producers distribute music videos and advertising / promotion on YT. When pros post on YT their potential customers / audience is not looking for “quality” above and beyond the highest quality they’re used to seeing on YouTube– they are looking at content.

If you want higher quality to show off your image expertise as well as your content, web site hosting is very CHEAP. You can easily place quite beautiful h264 Quicktimes on a web page of your own.

[David Roth weiss]

[Bill Dewald] “I’ve found that Youtube can chew on files for a long time if you crank the quality (i.e. filesize) too high. I’ve seen it take over 24 hours on a file approaching the 100mb limit.”

Bill,

When was the last time you actually used Youtube? Youtube is no longer limited to files that are under 100mb, and it doesn’t take 24 hours.

Multi-Video Upload
Each video can be up to 10 minutes in length and up to 1GB in size. These videos will be available in My Videos after they have finished processing. It may take 30 minutes or more for extremely large files to appear on your My Videos page.

The following link explains the installation of the YouTube Uploader:
https://help.youtube.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=79983&topic=13351

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Bill Dewald]

[David Roth Weiss] “When was the last time you actually used Youtube?”

Yikes! Definitely since that change. Boy is my face red.

Ok, in the name of science, I’m encoding a 5 minute test pattern at:

H.264 30 fps 640×480, 1400 kbps.

I’ll post it, and time

A. – How long it takes to upload

and

B. – How long it takes to become ‘viewable’ within youtube

I hope my six subscribers are ready for some Andy Warhol style fun.

Cheers – Bill

[Bill Dewald]

Ok, it’s crunching on YouTube.

i made a 5 minute spinning test pattern, and exporting using the H.264-LAN settings on Compressor:

H.264 – 640×480 – 29.97 fps – 1.405 Mpbs

The resulting file was 52.7 MB. I uploaded it to my YouTube account. It took eight minutes to upload, and now its processing.

This is where i ran into pitfalls before – it would take an inordinate amount of processing before the video was available. In a former job, it was very important to have fast access to the videos, which is why I used the specs listed earlier.

It began processing at 4:06 PDT… i’ll try to keep an eye on it. Here’s the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ1yMu0cwuU

C’mon, cow, lets make this the #1 viral test pattern in history!

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[Bill Dewald]

and there it is… took 15 mins for the whole process.

Thanks for speaking up, DRW!