Quality settings for Utube upload

emmrecs wrote on 3/30/2021, 3:56 AM

This page lists YT's own recommendations for video format etc., for upload to its site.

However, you need to be aware that, whatever "quality setting" you choose for your output, YT will automatically "downscale" it in order to suit the available bandwidth of the viewer's hardware, if needed. You have no control whatsoever over this!

Jeff
Forum Moderator

Robert-Evans1014 wrote on 3/30/2021, 4:05 AM

Thanks, I understand that you Utube will upload to their "VP9" setting ( you can see this in settings for nerds on the video) which will give a high res upload, if not they upload automaticaly at "AVC" setting which will not result a hi res video on utube. The trick is to make your video at a suitable setting so that Utube will recognise it as a high quality and upload it automatically at VP9.... but Im not sure what that setting is.. thanks

CubeAce wrote on 3/30/2021, 4:49 AM

@Robert-Evans1014

Hi Robert.

How do you currently convert files for YouTube in MEP?

What resolution does YouTube report when viewing?

I would not use the MEP YouTube preset to export a file for this.

Ray.

johnebaker wrote on 3/30/2021, 5:32 AM

@Robert-Evans1014

Hi

. . . . The trick is to make your video at a suitable setting so that Utube will recognise it as a high quality and upload it automatically at VP9.... but Im not sure what that setting is. . . .

Youtube encode the majority of uploaded video to h.264 in a mp4 container. This format is supported by more browsers than VP9 which is delivered in the WebM file format.

As @emmrecs has commented YT will re-encode you video no matter what you do to it. After 2 compressions - the first being the file you create - the quality is going to start dropping.

Due to the compression and rescaling done by YT, I would upload 4K UHD (2180p) video exported at the recommended YT settings.

John EB
Forum Moderator

CubeAce wrote on 3/30/2021, 6:10 AM

Hi Robert.

YouTube does indeed use two encoding formats depending on the perceived video quality and I have heard of several ways to circumnavigate it ,some of which are not needed nor entirely desirable.

How YouTube does this is not published but seems to rely on two aspects. The Mp/s and resolution. Both must be present as far as I can see to get the video on YouTube to encode to VP9.

Both files produced from the same video but the 4K one uploads to use YouTubes VP9 encoding whereas the 1080p one with a higher average bit rate doesn't and gets the AVC encoding. However using MEPs own export settings for HD and its max and min bit rate settings doesn't work either regardless of the resolution set or the resolution of the original source files.

You can get 1080p footage to encode to VP9 on YouTube by selecting the 4K, 3840 x 2160 (UHD) and exporting it as up-scaled video footage taking care to also select 'Best' in the advanced export box. The additional Mb/s and resolution seems to do the trick.

Whether this then results in a better viewing experience is to my eye debatable depending on the resolution it was shot in, and possibly is also affected by the monitoring device in use. Personally I can't tell the difference between one of my uploads to YouTube using the higher settings and my original footage on my PC if it was shot in 4K. whereas if it was shot at 1080p the up-scaling of the video and playback seem to reap no perceptual benefit as far as I can see.

4K 1080p

All images above come from the same project exported at the two different export settings I mentioned.

Ray.