Hi John

Yes I had checked out all those tips but was just looking for others experience on what they have found gives a clean result plus what advanced export settings they may have chosen. Also I have not felt that any of the fairly broad guidlines they state has given me results as good as some of the other peoples videos I have seen on these sites.

As I stated earlier, I am a bit dubious about the Vimeo MEP tute as the guy sets an Audio sample rate that the site does not reccomend/accept! It is also difficult to tell what export preset (just says "User defined") he chooses before changing advanced settings and in my version of MX there are distinct differences in the Advanced MPEG4 encoder settings depending whether you start with the flashplayer preset or say HDTV preset. He also uses 2 pass and Highest quality 15 - two settings that have never given me good results with MPEG4 - creating blurred detail and pixellation.

As you point out - whatever you upload will probably be converted to what the site needs but my point is that if we could create a file that is very close to that then there there would be less loss of quality through needless conversion / transcoding. Without the detailed information on their format, there is just a lot of experimentation required at our end, hence my request for what others have found that works well.

Peter

Hi Peter

Watched the Vimeo tutorial - as you say audio settings are the wrong bitrate, why the video quality and 2 pass settings are changed I cannot understand as the maximum bitrate setting of 5000 kbs will reduce the quality to make the difference almost indistinguishable and best of all they even invent a new word (as per the OED) !!!!

MEP also seems to be using odd settings, none of the exported video settings match the advice from Vimeo!

After experimenting I found the following gave the best results:-

Vimeo - use the Vimeo recommended settings, for SD or HD as required, and export from MEP as mp4, then use a web browser to upload.

Youtube - export the video as mp4 keeping the original bitrate, resolution, and framerate and upload with a web browser - unfortunately with Youtube you do not appear to have a lot of control over the conversion process.

John

Hi John

Thanks for your time (doing convertations) and suggestions on this.

I agree with your first  comment but theoretically 2 pass is supposed to help when compressing files a lot as it uses the analysis of the first pass to better distribute the limited bits to the frames that need them the most on the second encode pass. Problem is that in all the tests I have done it seems to do the opposite and creates much bigger files with crazy high bitrates - like 24Mbps for a 1280x720p conversion and crap quality to boot. Part of the problem seems to be that if you use the settings in that tute to the letter, it uses no Bframes and these are the highly compressed frames that make more efficient use of the limited bandwidth. Using the GOP of 33 with 3 bframes as in the MP4 HDTV export preset brings everything back to a reasonable file size and close to the 5Mbps target you set - and a reasonable encode quality.

Your second comment - yes - MEP seems to use a mobile phone preset judging by Media infos analysis, which might be okay for  half SD quality, but thats all. 

Your Vimeo encode - I presume you mean you used the Vimeo " Upload a file" page on their website to upload the file you previously encoded in MEP? Which MP4 preset did you start with and did you change the GOP and Bframe count when you encoded your test in MEP?

YT - do you mean you would output a file with the original camera specs. - 1920x1080p 50fps and then just let Youtube convert it through their upload page. Can they handle or display 50fps? I think I more or less did this in one of my attempts, although I dropped the Fps down to 25 when exporting from the timeline, but was not happy with the quality. It also took hours to upload and I think for this reason it is better to do most of the compressing / encoding on your own computer first.

Peter

I'm a year late getting into this discussion and some things may have changed.  I've lately been getting messages from Youtube when I upload videos indicating my encoding settings are less than ideal for Youtube.  I'm directed to this page for guidance: http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1722171.  My problem is finding these setting in the advanced area of the mp4 export dialog or the quicktime export dialog.  Part of their list follows.  I've ok'd the items I've located and set.  All others I haven't seen.

Container: .mp4  ok

No Edit Lists (or you may lose AV sync)  ok
moov atom at the front of the file (Fast Start)  ok
Audio Codec: AAC-LC  ok

Channels: Stereo or Stereo + 5.1  ok
Sample rate 96khz or 48 khz  ok
Video Codec: H.264  ok

Progressive scan (no interlacing)  ok
High Profile  ok
2 consecutive B frames  ??
Closed GOP. GOP of half the frame rate.  ??
CABAC  ??
Variable bitrate. No bitrate limit required, though we offer recommended bit rates below for reference  ok
Color Space: 4.2.0  ??

Hi Peter & John,

You're both way ahead of me technically on this so I doubt if I can contribute much. And I'm still using my Canon Ixus 220 HS for both stills (12 MP) and video (specification at end of post), so my requirements are obviously less demanding.

But clearly if we're to arrive at an optimum for online viewing (I use YT exclusively now so I'll focus on that and ignore Vimeo), then I'd make a couple of suggestions.

First we need to accept the subjective nature of any assessment. I'm betting that when viewing a YT video you've uploaded to YT, what you find disappointing or imperfect I'd find acceptable - at least until you point out its flaws.

That leads into my second and main point, the need for some methodical, 'standard' testing procedure. We need to be able to view the original source and the resultant YT video, alongside clear specifications of the procedure and settings used to arrive at it.

Although it doesn't match your higher quality format, by way of illustration here's an arbitrary video clip from my camera, chosen for its very small size (10 MB):

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/20120828-102528.MOV

Here is its Mediainfo report:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/20120828-102528.MOV.txt

Here are my project settings in MEP 2013 Premium 12.0.3.4 (UDC2):

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/MEP2013-TestingYT-01-ProjectSettings.jpg

Here are my video settings:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/MEP2013-VideoSetingsForTestingYT.jpg

I imported the 10 MB MOV. MEP asked if I wanted to adjust to its 23.98 fps and I chose No. I then used Share and chose Internet Quality Full HD.

Here is the resultant YT link after using the MEP Share feature:

Here is the rendered 2.9 MB file, as saved automatically (with its serious flaws) by MEP before automatic upload to YT:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/TestingYT-01-ViaShare.mp4

The result is seriously flawed as discussed at length previously in the thread MEP 2013 YT uploads failing:

http://www.magix.info/uk/mep-2013-yt-uploads-failing.forum.891409.html

(For instance, it's twice as long as it should be and audio is missing in the frozen second half.)

But it may still be helpful for you and John to examine its MediaInfo report:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/TestingYT-01-ViaShare.mp4.txt

If you think it would help I'll now also use my normal procedure of exporting and then uploading on the YT site.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi All

Probably a good time to have a look at this again - thanks.

DNLuce

You can find the settings you wish to check or alter in the Export Movie > Video as MPEG4 > Advanced > Advanced Video settings. If you start with a Flashplayer 1280x720p preset in the "Movie as MPEG4" window (you can up the resolution to Full HD in this window if you wish) you will see in the advanced video settings a profile that pretty much fills YT's needs - presuming you are starting with HD material. This gives similar settings as to what Magix uses roughly through the "Share > upload to YT > Internet Full HD quality " function through the top menu.

2 consecutive B frames  ?? ( = max B frames count 2 - in the GOP structure box)
Closed GOP. (= scene change detection more or less)  

GOP of half the frame rate.  ?? (you can change the GOP length here but the 30 preset is what Magix roughly uses through the share > upload to YTfunction through the top menu. Half the framerate would be 12 to 15 which seems a little short given the amount of compression required for YT )

CABAC  ?? (seems to be the default when using any of the MPEG4 export presets in Magix)

Color Space: 4.2.0  ?? (=the default setting through Magix for any consumer codec formats)

Terry

Thanks for your comprehensive submission - a couple of ideas from me after reviewing :-

Your camera is perhaps lower quality but your format is pretty HQ - less perhaps the 50p frame rate which is probably more of a liability in our case, when trying to boil it down into a lower quality or highly compressed streaming format. Your Media info shot shows the bitrate of your 24p footage is 36Mbps or .731 bits per pixel - quite a bit higher than my 50p panasonic at 28Mbps! Your footage is being compressed down to less than 5Mbps and .093 bits per pixel for the YT upload so you would expect to see some losses.

I must confess I have not done much YT stuff since our original discussions but just tried an upload, originated with the camera set to 25fps interlaced (50i), via the Share portal in MEP. Media info on the file showed specs. very similar to yours except that mine which started of as interlaced has become progressive and yours viceversa. Mine shows a GOP of 32 frames with 2 Bframes but yours does not display GOP info. My quality looks pretty good on YT too.

BTW I have not performed the latest MEP update yet. 

I can see your footage looks good save for a bit of pixellation in the waterfall where there is movement but it might look worse if there was some panning in the shot. I presume your main problem is still the stalling or slowing down which is extending the vision but apparently not the sound. I wonder that it might be a good idea to try and keep the native frame rate 23.976fps of the camera right through the process and see if this helps.

One thing I seem to remember is that using reference to hardware acceleration  or GPU use, in the program or export settings, was a suspected cause of problems in our last round of discussions. Your program settings > Video/Audio tab show both are checked.

I would like to see the media info details of the same file uploaded through your normal method.

Best

Peter

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the feedback. I value your know-how on this sort of stuff.

Yes, as per that earlier discussion, the serious flaws arise only with H/W Accel in use. And that remains the case in the latest patch. I chose to leave that setting in place for the test as it's too much hassle to keep changing it and remembering what it does and does not interact with!

My 'normal' approach is to simply use the same export settings I use for most of my projects. Usually that's to view on TV via my WDTV gadget, so that I get marginally better quality than playing the SD DVD which I also make). For the test video the export settings were these:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/MEP2013-YT-NormaExport.jpg

I then went to my YouTube page and used Upload, giving this result:

(BTW, is there still some way to edit the link you get from YT so that it automatically plays in the highest quality?)

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry

Looking at the link I would say it is playing in High Quality (if you mean HD) - the tail end of the link is

. . . . &autoplay=1&fs=1&hd=1 . . .

Which means it should auto start, display the fullscreen button and play in hd - the latter has been deprecated for the AS3 (Action Script 3)  players which, IIRC correctly, know whether it is HD or not and will play accordingly - it is still used where an AS2 player is available.

You can read more about the parameters here

https://developers.google.com/youtube/player_parameters

HTH

John

Hi All

DNLuce

Was anything in my reply useful? It's always nice to get some feedback or just a tick in the "Thanks" box to acknowledge.

Terry

So are you happy with that upload? It is a little difficult to tell as it is pretty quick but does it stutter slightly at the end as it appears to on my player. Also it did not show in HD here even though Auto was selected.

I notice from your settings profile that GPU was used for that latest upload. Actually I was interested in the advanced setting info for your encode.

BTW I am having terrible trouble creating an Progressive SD DVD from my 50P HD project that plays without terrible aliasing on my lounge room DVD player. Plays fine through my WDTV player though. Its as though it is only encoding a single field twice or something...... but I will start another thread on my testing and observations. It is just about driving me bonkers!

Peter

Hi Terry

Looking at the link I would say it is playing in High Quality (if you mean HD) - the tail end of the link is

. . . . &autoplay=1&fs=1&hd=1 . . .

Which means it should auto start, display the fullscreen button and play in hd 

Hi John,

The link I was given (and which I used in my post) was http:// youtu.be /ZzM3hF9-biE.

(I've had to insert blanks in that, otherwise Magix converts it yo a dynamic link!)

Where are you seeing the one you describe?

It used to be possible to manually edit that with a suffix of hq=1 or similar, but that no longer appears to be the case.

Anyway, I don't get autoplay here, and it looks low quality. If I pause and click the gear wheel i get this:

I had to try several times to switch, but eventually got it playing in HD.

BTW, during my attempts I switched to full screen and then found that I couldn't restart play. Had to refresh the page and return to normal viiew.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry

Hover your mouse over the link image and you will see it in the Firefox status bar or right click the link image and select copy link location and paste into Notepad.

Autoplays for me and I can replay as many times as I wish by dragging the progress bar knob back.

Gearwheel works as expected for me.  Only get that image at the end of play.

Which version of FF are you using and have you turned off using the internal player (and pdf reader) ?

John

So are you happy with that upload? It is a little difficult to tell as it is pretty quick but does it stutter slightly at the end as it appears to on my player. Also it did not show in HD here even though Auto was selected.

Don't think I see 'stuttering'. Can you elaborate? Was that in your browswer or playing the MP4? If the latter, in what player?

But as you say it really is too short to reach any proper conclusions, even when played in loop mode in VLC. Here's another much longer video. During the sections not spoilt by my camera's autofocus shortcomings, my poor technique and the appalling weather, you can see that the 1920x1080 resolution is maintained.

I notice from your settings profile that GPU was used for that latest upload. Actually I was interested in the advanced setting info for your encode.

Here they are. (I suggest this 3-part screenshot as a standard for showing export settings in these discussions.)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4019461/MEP2013-YT-NormaExport-Full.jpg

So it looks as if you and I get no HD autoplay, yet John apparently does.

Hi Terry

Hover your mouse over the link image and you will see it in the Firefox status bar or right click the link image and select copy link location and paste into Notepad.

Thanks John, hadn't seen that status bar display before!

But regardless of its showing the HD suffix, when played I don't get HD.

What happens if you left click the Bluebell Railway link in my post a few minutes ago? Hovering over it in FF shows the HD link in the status bar as you say, but it views in YT as 480.

Autoplays for me and I can replay as many times as I wish by dragging the progress bar knob back.

Gearwheel works as expected for me.  Only get that image at the end of play.

I can get the gearwheel's drop-down by pausing during play. In the Bluebell case, I see a similar screenshot to the one i showed before, but with a bullet against 480 (instead of 360) and Autoplay  in red

Which version of FF are you using

The latest, 20.0.1.

and have you turned off using the internal player (and pdf reader) ?

Not sure I know - I'll investigate! And where does PDF come into it?

Edit: I've just tried uploading the original MOV (i.e. as downloaded from my Canon Ixus 220 HS, no MEP involvement) and YT gave me this link. Once again it doesn't play in autoplay (HD) but at 480 this time, instead of 360.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry

. . . . And where does PDF come into it? . . .

FF 20 has a built in media player and  pdf reader - neither work properly with some videos and pdf files.  I have disabled mine so that video are played using Flash player plug-in and pdf's are displayed using Adobe Reader plug-in.

Looking at your image below you are using Flash Player - the Bluebell video starts in 360p despite me having Flash Player set to Auto for the resolution.  I have rechecked the original video link you posted and this too is now showing in 360p.  This needs looking into as AFAIK the Flash player should use the hd flag to play in that resolution when set to Auto.

John

Hi Terry

I think the stutter was just the video ending but something is very weird with this player (I am just clicking on your YT thumbnail link. I am using IE9) as apart from the resolution it chooses being very random it also displays and plays entirely different durations for your railway clip. Initially it said the clip was 360p and 46 secs long and stopped at that. Then it started playing at 720p and said it was 6.59 mins but stopped at 5.23mins, then started and stopped at 1.11min....?? 

I am running Flashplayer V11.7.700.169 which I think is the latest.

Your new link to your waterfall clip on YT shows 360p as does the old link but I have seen 240p at times after replaying the clip. I have tried playing other clips that YT offers after yours stops playing and they start at 1080p however one started in 360p and after pausing part way through started showing in HD.

So not sure what is going on but I do not think it is an MEP problem.

Your railway clip looks OK in 1080p except for blurring of detail in darker areas which is typical of MP4 compression at a relatively low bitrate. I assume from your settings shots that you used an unaltered MEP flashplayer template.  

Peter

Hi Terry

I agree with Peters observations on the resolution issue.  I have the same version of Flash Player but in FF, and it looks like the variability on playback resolution is a Flash player problem - from everything I read after testing yesterday - if a high res version of the video is available it should play the hi-res, however this is definitely not the case, so I suspect it is FP that is causing the issue - mine wil not go below 360p in FF 20, unlike Peters  I have not seen the variable length though.

Will try further testing in IE 10 and Chrome using FP as the player

John

Peter, John:

Thanks both. All seems very obscure and inconsistent!

FWIW, on the FF Forum I had this in reply to my post asking about FF's internal player.

"The "internal player" would presumably mean whether it's using the HTML5 player or the Flash player.

Anyway, I don't know why you would expect anything else to happen. YouTube automatically chooses a resolution based on player size and connection speed. You can affect it slightly in http://www.youtube.com/account_playback You used to be able to append &fmt=somequalitysetting to the URL, but they got rid of that in 2010 or 2011."

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry

After further digging I can find no evidence of whether the latest versions of Flash Play continue support for Action Script 2 (AS2)

The hd parameter was deprecated  in 2008 when AS 3 was introduced.  I would expect - and suspect it has - been dropped from the latest versions of FP, judging by the variability in playback of Terry's video and others I have tried.

AFAICS Youtube offers a HTML5 webm version for video delivery - have you tried this?

I do not use Youtube etc as I put my videos on my own website host  and use jwplayer for mp4s or webm file format for HTML 5.

John

Hi John,

Thanks for the further research. But I'm confused!

"Youtube offers a HTML5 webm version for video delivery - have you tried this?"

When and where is that offer made? How would I try it?

And does that imply that the FF forum poster was wrong in saying that YT "automatically chooses a resolution based on player size and connection speed"?

I'm simply seeking a reliable no-brainer procedure for occasionally copying an MEP-created video to YT. One that others can view on a variety of computers/TVs at its original quality. And ideally requiring no customising by them or me to achieve that.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

DNLuce

Was anything in my reply useful? It's always nice to get some feedback or just a tick in the "Thanks" box to acknowledge.

Hi Peter,

I suspect DNLuce works on a different timescale to us!
"I'm a year late getting into this discussion and some things may have changed."

Maybe you'll get some feedback around April 2014

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry

Youtube HTML 5 Webm option is here

John