Alright, thanks so I'll use 425x318, and raise the bit rate from 1 M to 100 M? My video's only about 4 minutes long.

I think that you should increase the resolution a bit more than that perhaps to 640.

See this series
800x450 YouTube - Test2 WMV 800x450
640x360 YouTube - Test2 wmv 640x360
320x240 YouTube - Transcoder test 2 wmv 320x240

But for perfect results, here is the tutorial on how to bypass the Youtube re-encoders using iTinySoft Total Video Converter 3.10
YouTube - How To: Upload Lossless Quality HDV Videos to YouTube
There are disadvantages of this method - such as you will need to press pause to allow the video to download before pressing play - but the quality is amazing.
See
YouTube - HD Encode example for Youtube

Huh?

Do this. Encode your project as mpg, then use the same settings and save as wmv. Now, open My Computer and look at the two files. My experience is that wmv is always smaller and sharper than mpg. To me, this is amazing. I don't understand how the files are more compressed and the video quality is better.

Mr. Safety's method does not work!

I have rendered an AVI (from 640x480) to 320x240 at his settings -

Project - Video quality - Best

Audio Mode - CBR
Audio Format - WMA 9.2
Audio Attribs - 128 kbps, 44Khz, Stereo (A\V) CBR

Video
Mode - CBR
Format - WMV 9
Image size 320x240
Pixel Aspect - 1.0
Frame rate 30.0
Video smoothness - 100
Bit Rate - 1 M

My on-disk product is crystal clear and sharp, and it's STEREO. YouTube's rendition is not sharp, it's pixelated, and it's converted to MONO! Just what the hell is going on?

I've looked at converting to Flash tutorials. I've looked at converting a Quicktime Video for YouTube. I have not tried these yet because of the time involved. Also, I can't work from a video. WRITE DOWN THE SETTINGS! MOVIES TAKE MORE TIME TO WATCH AND DON'T PROVIDE REFERENCE.

I can READ settings much faster than viewing a video! Watching a video takes a lot more time! Please, WRITE DOWN the settings!

Now, what am I suppose to do? My on-disk video is superb. I've also made a MPG-2 640x480 that is superb! But YouTube is giving me crap! Plain, unadulterated crap! What do I do? What is the format to write (AVI, MPG, WMV)? What settings? PLEASE! Somebody help me!

First of all, youtube is crap, and people like making videos.

Shoot in high definition. It seems to work.
Wmv is probably better than mp4 but there is not a lot in it.
Use the best video encding setting
Use 30 frames per second
Use a size of at least 320 by 240
Aim for a frame rate of about 1,000,000
increase these last two settings by a factor of about two for best performance up to a maximum memory of 100 megabytes.

Alternatively use
vimeo.com


Tim

I'm beginning to think it's futile. YouTube isn't gonna deliver.

I've made a WMV with the settings shown above (don't ask me to repeat them). I've made a MPG-1 with sq pixel ratio, at 30 fps.

I've tested both of these on YouTube. I pull up an existing video, then turn it off, move my PC based video in Media Player, and cover YouTube's video window, and resize Media Player so that it's window is the same size as Youtube's. Then I moved the media player out of the way, and started both videos.

Here's what I observe.

First and formost -- transistions turn to snot. Solid colors also have a blotchy look to them. Edges are no longer sharp. Contrast degrades. I believe that what YouTube is doing is converting your 320x240 file to 160x120! This saves them disk space.

Secondly, there is a VERY noticable difference in sound quality. I have many years experience editing both wav and mp3 files, and can tell you right away what's going on. Your 128 bit mp3 audio (or whatever format it is) is being converted to 56 bit audio... perhaps even less.

I believe there was a time when you could get decent video from 4:3 standard definition on YouTube. I believe that YouTube has degraded this option, and it's no longer available. Yes. There are pretty good quality videos on YouTube, but I think that most were shot in high definition, or are old videos and you can't get there anymore!

Now, I may be wrong in this last paragraph, but I'm sure I'm right in the first and second paragraphs when it comes to 4:3 standard defintion video. At tleast that's true with the codecs supplied with Vegas Studio 8. Perhaps a $500 codec would do it, but I'm not gonna risk it. Hell, I don't have $500 to begin with.

I'm done! I'm done with YouTube. I'm gonna find another outlet. I've seen podcasts that are sharp as a knife on the Net. I've seen streaming mpg and wmv that are sharp as a knife. Youtube is NOT the only place to put your videos!

Oh and... let me fill you in on a little sump'in too. My source AVIs are 30 FPS uncompressed at sq pixel, and 640x480. I can render a MPG-1 with these same settings and the file on my disk just rocks! They are incredibly wonderful!

> I'm beginning to think it's futile. YouTube isn't gonna deliver.
I think that you are right, if you are hoping it to compare with videos on your disk or streamed from your server space (both of which you pay for).

In the past I believe, Youtube did not have a 100MBs limit so I think that people may have uploaded content with better compression quality.

Vimeo.com allows 500mb a week in 720p HD.

Thanks for the tip on Vimeo.com. I'm currently seeking places to host quality videos. So far I've found two, but both of them allow downloads and I DON'T want people to be able to download my work. I'll keep looking until I find what I need.

Thanks again. If anyone has tips on where to get videos hosted, please advise.

Please share the other sites. I don't mind my videos being downloaded.
I think that vimeo allows downloads.

Lessee....

there's Podshow.com, which is a bit funky because they show in a narrow horizontal frame and I don't see a volume control.

Theres a site called fileshack.com, but it is ALL about downloading, and most acbout computer games.

Vimeo has me a bit baffled, because their sample streams break up. The video gets halted because you're not getting a continuous stream. They do allow downloads as you stated, but you can limit your audience to a selected few. Also, I only saw widescreen HD vids there. I need to contact them for more info.

There's a site called videodesk.net who has reasonable pricing, but I see no sample streams.

There's Streaming Video Hosting I don't understand what they're saying so I need to call them.

Erm... theres others, but I forget. Google 'video hosting' and many will turn up. Most seem to be about home made family videos.

I'm not real sure what to do yet, but methinks I need a host for the video, then blog space so I don't have to write HTML. I wanna keep this as easy as possible, and as inexpensive as possible too, but with reliable speed and uptime.

On another note, I learned that the three most popular stream types are Flash, Quicktime, and WMV. I then fired up Windows Media Encoder, and converted a 320 x 240 mpg-1 to streaming WMV. There's a little bit of loss in video quality, but get this -- the file size shrunk from 55 mb to 11 mb!! The video still looks pretty nice, but the audio is converted to 64 bit and is noticably deteriorated. Still, it looks and sounds MUCH better than YouTube's. However, the downside is there is no way to protect it from being downloaded. Thats a real issue for me, although others may not object to it.

If you find something that looks promising, please holler. I'm still much too confused about this to make any recommendations yet, but I do know that I'm done with YouTube.