Forum Discussion

Simmerville's avatar
Simmerville
Seasoned Ace
4 years ago

Tech - youtube video quality

I just want to ask what quality you guys upload to youtube? I understand yt will compress quality, but is there any does and don'ts?

I create several sorts of videos on my channel, but I hardly ever watch my own uploads. Yesterday I did watch my latest "screenshots folder" video, and I was quite disappointed with the quality compared to what I see on my local pc. These vids are very short, less than 3 minutes, and there is only screenshots - no moving pictures except from a few transitions. There is music, too. All in all I would expect a pictures vid to need less compression, and less quality loss. But no, it looked rather bad, so there must be a better way for me to extract/upload these vids. But how should it be done?

I use Filmora wondershare editor to edit and extract. I normally save with "best quality" but for these vids I sometimes do "better quality" because of reasons mentioned above.

Is there any way I should alter my videos more before uploading them? I don't expect top quality on youtube, but I've seen vids on there with much better quality than mine - almost the quality I see on my local computer. So how is that possible?
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  • Khyoot's avatar
    Khyoot
    4 years ago
    I'm not sure of this (even though I should be, I've uploaded hundreds of videos to yt); but it might be that only the channels with a certain amount of subscribers and viewtime that get the higher quality compressions in youtube's own conversion. If youtube can monetize their videos, they are more likely to want the videos to be shown at better quality.

    A mistake I made in the beginning was to view my own videos right after I uploaded them. At that point the HD version of them hadn't finished processing though, and thus I was watching the SD version. Now I give it a minute (usually happens when I put tags on the video anyway) before I watch, and at least that problem is gone :)
  • Haneul33's avatar
    Haneul33
    Seasoned Adventurer
    4 years ago
    I agree that 60fps 1080p would be ideal.

    720p is "standard," but that really should be your minimum settings. HD is 1080p. UHD is 1440p. Then, there's 4k and 8k (which aren't needed for Sims 4). These are all related to resolution and the amount of pixels on a screen, but honestly, the best way to understand what they mean is to watch a video on YT at each quality setting from 480p to 1080p or 1440p. Your monitor is probably HD and 1080p, so you may not be able to sense differences in quality much higher than that.

    Edit: This is a video I did as a test at I think 30fps but I'm not sure. The motion is kind of blurry because the frame rate is low and it would be better at 60fps, but if you don't have a lot of motion in your videos fps matters a lot less and your game itself also ideally needs to be being played at a high fps... https://youtu.be/gCKu3T7gWZ0
  • Haneul33's avatar
    Haneul33
    Seasoned Adventurer
    4 years ago
    The screenshots video looks okay to me and your sims world is so detailed with so many sims with stories ... :o , but I think I see what you mean when I look at one of your old videos. The difference is super subtle, though, so I'm not sure. I'm sorry I can't be of much help.

    Maybe experiment with different upload settings or try to export/save the video with settings that are optimized for YT or extract directly from your editor to YT.

    Good luck!

    Thanks for the sweet comment on my video too.
  • Khyoot's avatar
    Khyoot
    4 years ago
    Yes, do absolutely try to save a video with 60fps and in 1080p, then upload to youtube and check for a difference. A panning shot might be the ideal test video :)
  • ajaxpost's avatar
    ajaxpost
    New Spectator
    4 years ago
    I've not done this so can't vouch for accuracy but a number of creators I speak with do not trust the YouTube encoding process for 1080p HD videos to maintain the best possible quality.

    What several of them do is record and upload in 4K resolution as, I'm told, YouTube handles this higher resolution better and even when it 'downscales' for 1080p the video will end up looking better, and more faithful to your original. If that helps at all. ?
  • Simmerville's avatar
    Simmerville
    Seasoned Ace
    4 years ago
    "ajaxpost;c-17844828" wrote:
    I've not done this so can't vouch for accuracy but a number of creators I speak with do not trust the YouTube encoding process for 1080p HD videos to maintain the best possible quality.

    What several of them do is record and upload in 4K resolution as, I'm told, YouTube handles this higher resolution better and even when it 'downscales' for 1080p the video will end up looking better, and more faithful to your original. If that helps at all. ?


    Thanks @Ajaxpost ! That's exactly the kind of facts I'm needing. There is obviously something weird with the upload/compressing of my latest vids, and uploading as lower qualit than I do, might actually help. I gotta test this when I'm back from Easter vacation.
  • Simmerville's avatar
    Simmerville
    Seasoned Ace
    4 years ago
    "Khym;c-17839121" wrote:
    I'm not sure of this (even though I should be, I've uploaded hundreds of videos to yt); but it might be that only the channels with a certain amount of subscribers and viewtime that get the higher quality compressions in youtube's own conversion. If youtube can monetize their videos, they are more likely to want the videos to be shown at better quality.

    A mistake I made in the beginning was to view my own videos right after I uploaded them. At that point the HD version of them hadn't finished processing though, and thus I was watching the SD version. Now I give it a minute (usually happens when I put tags on the video anyway) before I watch, and at least that problem is gone :)


    Thanks! I'm pretty sure I waited 30 minutes or so, but I'll check an older video just to compare.

    If your theory re YT providing poor quality for small channels I'll just stop making videos, because nobody will watch a full length vid in poor quality. But, I've watched many small youtubers' vids showing a way better quality than the one I saw in my own.

    I wonder if the problem is within Filmora, perhaps I'm using the wrong settings somehow, but I don't find any way to know...
  • Khyoot's avatar
    Khyoot
    4 years ago
    I'm not an expert by any means, and I'm following this thread for a chance to learn as well :) When you said that you watch the videos on your own computer and they're higher quality then, is that the ready made video, or the raw material you're talking about?
  • Simmerville's avatar
    Simmerville
    Seasoned Ace
    4 years ago
    "Khym;c-17839202" wrote:
    I'm not an expert by any means, and I'm following this thread for a chance to learn as well :) When you said that you watch the videos on your own computer and they're higher quality then, is that the ready made video, or the raw material you're talking about?


    The ready video. The final result of the extracted production. I normally save the final video in "best quality", but as files can be rather big, I save them in "better quality" (the next best option) when the video is something I don't really need to keep in the long run - like the "my screenshots folder" vids, and the "Free Will Show" episodes. For more time consuming and detailed productions like "As Sims Go By" (fiction soap/drama) I save them as best quality possible, as they are more valuable productions to me.

    In the past I also kept the raw material, but because my hard disk is limited, and I rarely will need that material again, I delete most of it after a year or so.

    Anyway, I need to find out if there are different formats. I forget to mention that my final videos , that are uploaded to youtube, are in MP4 format. Maybe that is the problem... how would I know.
  • Khyoot's avatar
    Khyoot
    4 years ago
    I save my finished videos as 60fps 1080p mp4 as well, and that's also the quality that they are available at in youtube... what is your render output set to? like, what does "better quality" and "best quality" actually mean in terms of numbers?

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