How to encode for You Tube?

[Jerry Cast]

Just to add:

I purchased Magic Video Converter as “You Tube” suggested, so that I could take this 18 gig, uncompressed .avi and covert it to Mpeg 4 which they said they prefer.

After using the program, I only saw an option for Mpeg 2, so I tried that, but it won’t work with my .avi. I tried other .avi’s and it worked, so it must be either the size of the .avi, or, that’s it’s unmcompressed.

Thier tech support sent me an automated, “form” email without reading the specs I gave them already.

My goal is to get this video on You Tube in the highest quality possible, AND, to get this video on my own personal website, also at the highest quality possible, but am still lost in this process.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Jim

[Roberto Cerini]

I would split the video in Premiere. Then you can encode each half using H.264. You may have to play with the settings in order to shrink it enough and obviously the quality may be affected by it.

Roberto Cerini
https://www.robertocerini.com

[Jerry Cast]

Roberto,

Thank you, I’ll try it. Your video looks pretty clear on your website. It looks like you linked to You Tube, so I guess your visitors are actually watching a You Tube video streaming from thier site and not actually streaming from your site, right?

I’m trying to figure out the best encoding (besides Windows Media Player) for my own personal site too.

Thanks again.

Jim

[Roberto Cerini]

Yeah I stream from Youtube so that I don’t give up hdd space and bandwidth.

I definitely like H.264. Mind you, my videos are not HD either, which will definitely look better, IMO, but I am happy with what I got.

I can send you my settings for the H.264 codec, don’t know if they will work for you, but it would be a start. Let me know. (You can pm me at rcerini at gmail dot com)

Roberto Cerini
https://www.robertocerini.com

[Micah Mcdowell]

Here’s a page I found that has export settings for Youtube that generally work great for me:

https://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/you_tube_redux_gary.html

It’s geared toward Mac/Compressor users, but there’s some valuable tips for encoding using Windows software like Premiere as well.

[Michael Easparam]

Do you have Premiere Pro? (I assume so since you are in this forum, but just checking) If so, what version?

I’m not sure why you purchased another software pack since at least Premiere Pro 3 and higher can export to all the formats mentioned here.

I use PP 3.0 to export to 1280x720p H.264 for YouTube all the time. Vimeo likes it also. Better get used to it now if you plan to step into the Blu-Ray world soon also.

[Jerry Cast]

Thanks Michael,

I have Prem Pro CS3, but purchased that other thing because You Tube said they like the Mpeg 4 from an ucompressed .avi for best quality (I read this on thier site). I would up not seeing an option to export Mpeg 4 in this cheap program, and tried for Mpeg 2 and that didn’t work because it probably can’t deal with an uncompressed .avi as it works with a regular Microsoft DV .avi.

So, you are saying, right from Prem Pro, just use the media encoder and pick H.264, and also choose 1280 X 720, even though this is Standard Def video?

Ok, thanks, I’ll give it a try.

[Jerry Cast]

Thanks Roberto,

I’ll try some different settings with H.264 and see what happens.

Thanks again.

[Jerry Cast]

Ok, so I looked carefully at the H.264 codec in Premier Pro CS3 Media Encoder.

My file is now a 1.8 gig Microsoft DV .avi. (as opposed to the ucompressed .avi I was trying to start with).

Using the You Tube choice in the Media Encoder, makes the file about 57 megs.

Using the NTSC preset made it 190 megs, and when I boosted the bit rate and some other stuff, it balloned to about 450 megs.

I figured that the NTSC exported file would be better to upload to You Tube as I figured it’s better. And then let You Tube encode it, rather than encoding it myself with the You Tube option.

Does it matter? Will be final quality when it plays on You Tube be the same?

Thanks.

[George Socka]

My recipe is:

Adobe media encoder from PPro CS3. h264 format, ntsc 1280×720 about 2 mbps CBR ( VBR takes too long and the issue is not about trying to make the file small enough to fit on a DVD) An 8 minute clip became a 140 mb mp4 file. took almost an hour to upload at night.

Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHAqknm2qOg

This was shot in HD, edited in SD for a DVD based presentation, and then up-rezzed from the timline of the same widescreen DV PPro project used for the DVD. simply by select the 1280×720 preset. looks pretty good I think. I believe the resulting file creaed by youtube is about 32 mb when playing teh HD version so I am not sure that encoding to h264 at a higher bit rate would be useful but woudl take longer to encode and uplaod.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TenCq3L9BMo

was encoded at 6 mbps from a similar widescreen DV project and has a bit richer color. This 2:20 clip became a h264 export of 110 mb.

George Socka
BeachDigital
http://www.beachdigital.com

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