Saving for best quality?

[Nath[BDP]]

I'm using Windows movie maker, the .AVI looks fine but when I upload to YT the quality drops where you can't even discern icons.  What's the best way to save to retain picture quality?

Thanks...

[Krusty]

Sometimes YT will play at the lowest quality level. Have you made sure that it is set to the highest resolution during playback? THere's a cog/gear icon that lets you set the resolution.

What compression settings are you saving with under Windows Movie Maker?

[Nath[BDP]]

Sometimes YT will play at the lowest quality level. Have you made sure that it is set to the highest resolution during playback? THere's a cog/gear icon that lets you set the resolution.

What compression settings are you saving with under Windows Movie Maker?

yeah it only goes to 480p

I used DV-AVI (NTSC)

[Soulyss]

yeah it only goes to 480p

I used DV-AVI (NTSC)

That would probably explain it NTSC, stands for National Television Standards Committee which was the original analog TV standard that was setup back in the late 40's probably, I doubt you'll get anything better than 480 lines of resolution with that setting.

[Krusty]

Specific to Windows Movie Maker and uploading for YouTube, here is a general page on google:

http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=guide.cs&guide=1728585&topic=1728569

This one is found on the side menu, and relates to the codec and compression they suggest:

http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/static.py?hl=en&topic=1728573&guide=1728585&page=guide.cs

Some of what it says:

Container: .mp4

•No Edit Lists (or you may lose AV sync)
•moov atom at the front of the file (Fast Start)

Audio Codec: AAC-LC

•Channels: Stereo or Stereo + 5.1
•Sample rate 96khz or 48 khz

Video Codec: H.264

•Progressive scan (no interlacing)
•High Profile
•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
•Color Space: 4.2.0
Frame rates should match the source material

•For example, content shot in 24fps should be encoded and uploaded at 24fps. Content recorded at 30fps should be uploaded at 30fps.
•Content shot in 720p60, should be uploaded at 720p60
•Content at 1080i 60, should be deinterlaced, going from 60 interlaced fields per second to 30 progressive frames per second before uploading.

Resolutions

YouTube uses 16:9 aspect ratio players. If you are uploading a non-16:9 file, it will be processed and displayed correctly as well, with pillar boxes or letter boxes provided by the player. If you want to fit the player perfectly, encode at these resolutions:

•1080p: 1920x1080
•720p: 1280x720
•480p: 854x480
•360p: 640x360
•240p: 426x240



It then goes on to suggest bitrates and some other stuff, check out the tables at the bottom.

[Latrobe]

While we're on the topic of video quality, I just got Pinnacle Studio HD version 15 today so I could try making AHII videos. I have no knowledge on video format stuff and after a few minutes of messing around this was the best quality I got ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q2WXjWtMOw&feature=plcp

I can't help but feel that the quality is still suffering a little. When I watch Dolby's videos or Lepape's they look to have slightly better quality than what I put together. They might have thrown in some video effects to make it look better, but I don't know what they would have done.


When saving AVI shots in the AHII Film Viewer, what Compressor do you guys use? Do you leave it at Full Frames (Uncompressed)? Only 2 of the choices let me open up the AVI file in Pinnacle and play properly. The others just showed a black screen when playing or didn't open at all. The 2 that worked were "Cinepak Codec by Radius" and "Microsoft Video 1". (Microsoft Video 1 was very poor quality no matter what I did so I used Cinepask Codec in the video posted above)

[ImADot]

Most of those guys (I'm guessing) actually play back their shots in fullscreen mode and use another app (like Fraps) to record the playback in full resolution - instead of saving the shot as AVI from inside the film viewer. Then they stitch the shots together in a video editor for the final file to upload to YouTube.

[Latrobe]

Most of those guys (I'm guessing) actually play back their shots in fullscreen mode and use another app (like Fraps) to record the playback in full resolution - instead of saving the shot as AVI from inside the film viewer. Then they stitch the shots together in a video editor for the final file to upload to YouTube.

That's actually pretty clever, will have to give that a try.



That works a whole lot better. I'm not clever enough to have thought of that. 

[Nath[BDP]]

Most of those guys (I'm guessing) actually play back their shots in fullscreen mode and use another app (like Fraps) to record the playback in full resolution - instead of saving the shot as AVI from inside the film viewer. Then they stitch the shots together in a video editor for the final file to upload to YouTube.

I was using fraps but not doing fullscreen.  Could be my prob?  Still getting quality depreciation once on YT though. 

Dolby needs to tell us how to get HD option on YT.

[coombz]

I was using fraps but not doing fullscreen.  Could be my prob?  Still getting quality depreciation once on YT though. 

Dolby needs to tell us how to get HD option on YT.

I export as an FLV file (using Adobe Premiere)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISviFJZks_8    you can view this in 1080P HD quality

Oh and in FRAPS i'm pretty sure I just use Half Screen option, but make sure you set it to 60 FPS.

[Krusty]

Nath, the reason to use full screen is to get maximum resolution to work with. You run a small screen (windowed) mode and it's pretty much set at that. It's blocky and running even the slightest of zooms (i.e. to crop or center the action) turns blocky very fast. Recording at higher resolution than you need, then editing and exporting, allows much better quality final productions. The file format also plays a part, as youtube specifically will re-compress the file once you upload it. That's why it takes 30 minutes before the film is ready. Based on what they compress it INTO, certain formats will make the change more smoothly than others. That's why they suggest MP4 with H.264 format.

[Krusty]

Just for comparison:

One I did long long ago, using windowed recording:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqTYvqw68Uk

Some others where I did much larger recording (forgive the low texture res on the B-25 clip):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8-0BdcVFls
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpGNtI6CmnE
(the last one shows lots of detail, was recorded full screen and downsized)



You can see it's quite a quality difference. The first is horribly blocky.

[Nath[BDP]]

quite a diff, thanks for the examples.....

[LCADolby]

Dolby needs to tell us how to get HD option on YT.

HD is base solely on the resolution you have chosen to save as.



In The Hornet (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xYfNhUNwkY) the setting are as follows;

Recorded from AHFilm at 0.25 speed by MSI Afterburner at 1680x1050 at 30 frames per second (Beware of large GIGABITES!!)
Film files are placed directly into Sony Movie Studio HD Platinum.
Each file is then sped up x4 then cropped to 16:9 WideScreen TV Aspect
Then made into a Film file with thte following properties
Audio: 192 Kbps, 48,000 Hz, 16 Bit, Stereo, WMA (CBR)
Video: 30 fps, 1280x720 Progressive, WMV, 6.3 Mbps (Quality VBR)
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.000

I recommend 60 fps to make fast movements clearer and give YouTube more samples.
YouTube will rob your film of quality because it reduces your file size to around 150MB for every 5mins.
The originals on my PC HDD have twice the quality and smoothness of movement of youtube, loss of quality should be expected, but high quality original will minimise YouTube's 'dumbing down' impact.
(I'd like to do 1080P films, but I simply cannot due to numerous ageing components  )
Hopefully this info may help

[Spikes]

Most of those guys (I'm guessing) actually play back their shots in fullscreen mode and use another app (like Fraps) to record the playback in full resolution - instead of saving the shot as AVI from inside the film viewer. Then they stitch the shots together in a video editor for the final file to upload to YouTube.

I do this.
Fraps the shot, add the shots into Sony Vegas...I render my videos into usually the lowest quality HD. 4.8mbps I believe. Goes into 720p on YT
Here's a couple I made for examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxJgB94OJ0g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdT6isL6gPk

It can turn into a long and tedious process...especially when adding in your own music and game sounds not recorded in the fraps video.  As Dolby said, using uncompressed video can easily make your output folder 100+gb.

I haven't made a video in a couple years...I'm sure the graphics quality has improved now.