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Higher Quality Video Playing for youtube at 360p?
Hi guys,
I’ve exported a video of mine out in Premiere Pro at 720p 25fps (PAL) settings. The video looks perfectly sharp and clean when I view it on my computer and when uploaded to youtube and changing the player setting to HD 720p it looks great. The issue is when the default youtube player automatically scales and plays the video down at 360p.
I figure most people won’t be bothered to click and change the quality of the video so I’m trying to maintain the high quality of the video that I see in the original 720p render of the video player in youtube’s default 360p settings. I wouldn’t even be bothered if the video looked worse playing at the larger youtube setting so long as the 360p version looked crisp.
It seems possible because I notice other people uploading videos that are running at youtubes 360p and they still look High Def quality – just playing at a smaller frame size.
I’ve tried bumping up the bitrate significantly, and exporting it at smaller frame sizes. Nothing seems to be making a change in the 360p version playing on youtube.
Anyone got render settings that work for youtube and will maintain quality when it runs at 360p?
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7 Replies
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Viewers have to set their player to highest quality in their YouTube preferences. 360 is just what it is, lowest quality.
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Adobe Certified Expert Premiere Pro -
[Ann Bens] ” Viewers have to set their player to highest quality in their YouTube preferences. 360 is just what it is, lowest quality.”
Don’t think he is debating that. He is pointing out that other folks video looks better at 360 than his. So the questions are why? and how can he improve his at 360?
OP, did you email the youtube folks about this?
Good Luck,
Robert -
Yeah exactly. I understand that there will be quality loss going to 360p but for some reason other people’s videos don’t seem to degrade as dramatically.
For example all the vevo music videos.
https://www.youtube.com/user/VEVO?blend=1&ob=5#p/f/1/FHp2KgyQUFk
Still look quite sharp playing at 360p. Now my 720p video looks just as sharp but when youtube scales it down to 360p it looks noticeably worse.
Just wondering if anyone else was having a similar experience and whether they have a solution.
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It does depend on the quality of the original source. You are comparing VIVO to your videos, but we don’t know what format you are working with. AVCHD footage is heavily compressed and may look great at 720p for you, but compared to something that is shot with RED or Film to DPX is going to look so much better you’d can compare the two when they are then recompressed down to 360p on YouTube. Some extra softening from the compression will occur.
I do know that there is an immediate 360 quality that looks very average and then a higher quality one becomes available sometime later…
Can you send us a link to something you are referring too in your posts.
Cheers,
JBJon Barrie
aJBprods
Jon’s YouTube Tutorial Page
follow Jon with twitter -
Hmm perhaps that’s it. I am shooting in AVCHD format. Here’s an example of what I was talking about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn8ueq5bS5g
It was rendered under h.264 > HDTV 720p 25 High Quality render settings.
Can you elaborate about the immediate 360 and then the higher quality available later?
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Hi Michael,
Looking at your 720P version I can see plenty of Compression chucks going on in the wood and pretty much anywhere there is lots of red or orange. This is typical of that colour range to compress badly. I think you might be expecting too much from the camera and compression type you are working with.
I am not saying you aren’t doing a professional production here, just that this is the limitations of working with AVCHD.
I doubt you will be much better than you are already seeing.
🙁
– JB
Jon Barrie
aJBprods
Jon’s YouTube Tutorial Page
follow Jon with twitter -
Thanks for taking the time to look it Jon. I was afraid of that.
Just to check my workflow – import my 1080 50i footage into Ppro > sequence size 1280 x 720. Clips checked scale to frame so they automatically resize > Export at H.264 HDTV 25 720p High Quality settings. Is that the appropriate workflow to render out a video made specifically for online viewing? Would rendering it out as a flv be better for youtube’s player? From the few tests I’ve done it didn’t make a difference but perhaps I’m using the wrong render settings.
Seems like quality definitely drop from the raw footage, is that always to be expected?
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