exported video is fine on my hard drive, but distorted on YouTube

[Shane Ross]

What is your source footage? What format?

Shane
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[Tobin Duby]

source footage is QuickTime movie (MPEG-2 Video, Linear PCM, Timecode) captured from Mini DV.

[Shane Ross]

So the footage is DV/NTSC…captured via firewire? Or is it HDV…High definition but from DV tape?

For best results, I export self contained, then use the YouTube preset in Compressor, then upload.

Shane
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[Tobin Duby]

It is HDV from DV tape, captured by firewire.

Are you saying running it through the Compressor preset is actually better? I’d love to do without that second step if I can, since it’s never been necessary before. Any idea what could have changed here?

[Shane Ross]

[Tobin Duby] “Are you saying running it through the Compressor preset is actually better?”

If you use the YouTube preset, then YouTube won’t re-encode. Often, if you upload something that doesn’t match their spec, they re-encode. So that might be what is happening. It looks fine for you, but once up…bam.

[Tobin Duby] “Any idea what could have changed here?”

Nope. Just offering possible solutions based on other similar issues I’ve had.

Shane
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[Tobin Duby]

At first I thought it was the YouTube re-encoding, but then I noticed that the distortions are visible if you preview the file in Wonders. Video Cconverter too. So maybe the errors really are in the local file, but in a way that QuickTime Player doesn’t see?

I wonder if I should try deleting a plist or something of that nature… but I really don’t know what I’m doing in that territory so I’m afraid to just go trying it!

[Tobin Duby]

^sorry, that’s Wondershare Video Converter.

[Shane Ross]

Try COmpressor. If the distortion isn’t there when you use Compressor, then the issue lies with Wondershare and YouTube.

Shane
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[Joseph Owens]

One thing to check out is the Quicktime Inspector, and make sure that what you think you are exporting is actually what format the file wound up being.

I often see surprise changes in files that are exported out of the FCP “Make Movie” dialog. The stuttering and looping you observe could be the result of a bad framerate selection. You might think you were exporting 23.98 or 29.97, but occasionally FCP/QT will create a bizarre framerate (ie 4.9fps) related to the space between your first trim-in point and an intra-frame in a Long-GOP format like mp4 or others.

Some people might classify this as a “bug”, but I’m sure Apple sees it as “your problem.”

Compressor doesn’t ever seem to exhibit this behaviour.

jPo

“I always pass on free advice — its never of any use to me” Oscar Wilde.

[Tobin Duby]

Well I think I figured it out. The answer makes me sound dumb but I’ll go ahead and share in order to put a nice closing on this conversation. For some reason, the “Make Self Contained Movie” box was unchecked in the Export QuickTime Movie dialogue. Now, it was my impression that this box should always stay checked unless you want to make a reference movie. It was also my impression that reference movies won’t play at all (as in, not even a distortion and looping on YouTube) when they’re disconnected from the source files.

But checking Make Self Contained Movie cleared it right up. Now to test whether the compressor settings you have pointed me toward make for a better upload…