YouTube videos go 1280x720

[easy2Bcheesy]

I'm confused at HD presentation on YouTube now. If I do a direct link with the &fmt=22 extension to the URL, I get a 640x360 playback window. If I go direct to the video, then select the 'view in HD' option, I get a whopper playback window (most likely 960x540).

Is there any way to link to the 960x540 version directly?

[Dark Shikari]

I'm confused at HD presentation on YouTube now. If I do a direct link with the &fmt=22 extension to the URL, I get a 640x360 playback window. If I go direct to the video, then select the 'view in HD' option, I get a whopper playback window (most likely 960x540).

Is there any way to link to the 960x540 version directly?fmt=35 or 36 I think?

[easy2Bcheesy]

That gives me the 960x540 window, but it's just blowing up the low quality version instead.

Sometimes adding &fmt=22 gives me the 960x540 version, sometimes the 640x360. It's all really confusing.

[Atak_Snajpera]

960x540 does not sound like HD. Does it mean that youtube is cheating us?

[easy2Bcheesy]

You can click on the full-screen button to get 720p, but the 960x540 versions are still very very nice... when they work!

[Dark Shikari]

You can click on the full-screen button to get 720p, but the 960x540 versions are still very very nice... when they work!Most videos aren't yet available in HD.

[um3k]

I measured it, it's actually 853x480, rather than 960x540. Still quite large, relatively speaking.

[Sagekilla]

DVD resolution is better than what most sites offer. Most use 320x240, or 480x360 (don't see that very often though). I'd be quite happy watching DVD resolution over that crap they're playing now.

[easy2Bcheesy]

Most videos aren't yet available in HD.

The point I'm making is that videos that are available in HD are behaving differently. Sometimes I can get them working at 640x360, othertimes at the 853x480 resolution. There seems to be no hard-set way (via URL) to ensure the 853x480 resolution.

[cweb]

I'm uploading a standard widescreen video (source dv ; avi - xvid) in 640x352 and Youtube I believe is resizing it.. it really makes it look terrible, lots of artifacts are produced which weren't there... does anyone have any ideas on any good way to create something which looks decent (sure the high quality version looks better but still...) ? I use avisynth in my video processing of course...

[Schrade]

I'd recommend installing YousableTubeFix for Greasemonkey (or Opera): http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/13333

It offers many options for viewing YouTube videos and it'll actually show you which resolution you're watching as well as a dropdown menu under the video that allows you to switch to a different version. You can also configure it to to choose the highest quality video available as well as change the size of the non fullscreen video size.

It also provides simple download links if you want to save a video.

[cweb]

I'd recommend installing YousableTubeFix for Greasemonkey (or Opera): http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/13333

It offers many options for viewing YouTube videos and it'll actually show you which resolution you're watching as well as a dropdown menu under the video that allows you to switch to a different version. You can also configure it to to choose the highest quality video available as well as change the size of the non fullscreen video size.

It also provides simple download links if you want to save a video.
Thanks. I just installed it to aid my experimentation.
I'm uploading small snippets to see the quality and whether anything I change improves it. I removed my call to LimitedSharpenFaster and added a call to Lanczos4Resize instead.. seems like there is an improvement, though I'd like the youtube result to be better than it currently is..

Pity the youtube hack stopped working, *sighs*...

[Flux]

I'm trying to make videos for Youtube which are focused on audio tracks instead video. HD-version supports 224 kbps 44.1 kHz MP3 stereo which seems to be the best for Youtube. However, video has only still image(s) but I need to push the bitrate high enough so it is seen as HD or at least has High Quality link on it.

This can be done with some lossless encoders but then bitrate is very high and it takes ages to upload one video with my slow upload connection. I'm using MeGUI and x264 encoder. My goal is to get something like 1500 - 2000 bitrate with still images. I have also noticed that Youtube seems to have some trouble encoding x264 videos which use low CRF like 10 or maybe even 12. When I play these videos in Youtube, the loading circle doesn't vanish or playback stutters in certain positions of the video. Sometimes they work fine.

Might as well put these couple questions in this post:

1. Why Youtube use 480x360 resolution for High Quality because 360 is not Mod16? Doesn't it cause quality drop?

2. When I upscale or downscale video resolution for Youtube, they should always scale like 2x, 3x, 4x, etc.? If that is not possible, then scale with 0.5x, 1.5x, 2.5x, etc.? Or 0.75x, 1.75x, etc.? Scales like 1.65347x should be avoided at all cost and use black borders to get "clean" multiplier for scaling?

[2Bdecided]

640x360 is a common 16x9 size.

What do you think the designers care more about - a tiny drop in efficiency, or not getting the exact page layout they want? ;)

Cheers,
David.

[Atak_Snajpera]

640x360 is perfectly resized 1280x720.

[Sagekilla]

They don't scale by a specific factor. They'll resize until one side fills up a whole side in the 640x360 box, then pad with black borders I believe.

At least, that seems like the most intelligent thing to do anyway.

[Flux]

My post seems to be a bit vague. I meant that when I upscale low resolution video before uploading it to Youtube, should I always try to follow factors like 2x, 3x, if not possible, then 1.5x, 2.5x, if not possible, then 1.75x, 2.75x, etc. and not just pick some random factor like 1.6456x so it fits to 640x360 or 480x360 window? For example I have CG made videos which have 288x224 resolution and I want to have High Quality link for it, I should scale it to 480x360 directly or something like 432x336 with black borders to get 480x360?

Also looking for a method to get high bitrate for still image videos so it passes the Youtube 1500 kbps check for High Quality. x264 (or any modern encoder) seems to encode it with tiny bitrate. Lossless mode corrupts the video for Youtube. It says "Processing..." forever last time I tried. Other lossless compression makes huge files so I just want 1500 kbps for those videos. Nothing more because I have slow upload.

[Sagekilla]

Okay, that clarifies things a bit more. My recommendation? If your video is something like 320x240, just upsample to 640x480 and throw it at x264. Otherwise, don't change the AR. Just pad it to either 640x360 or 640x480.

Also, if you wanna try to get x264 to use 1500 kbps, I recommend forcing it to use keyframes only with a low crf (keyint 1, ref 0, crf 1) or try using 2 passes with --bitrate 2000 or something like that.

[NerdWithNoLife]

I've purposely upped the bitrate in the past. Experience tells me if your video isn't making the bitrate, file size with lossless x264 won't be a problem unless you pick a keyframe interval that's too small. It handles dups really well. That's the trick - you have to find the magic number. If you're having this issue, 2 pass probably won't work (it will say 2 pass curve failed to converge).

If YT keeps giving you issues with x264, try Xvid. Set the target quantizer to 1. Then lower the max I-frame interval. Just be sure you're doing it in target quantizer mode, not target bitrate mode, or you could lose quality.

[Atak_Snajpera]

YouTube finally uses High Profile@3.1 for 720p videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5F-u73hSSY&fmt=22

Video
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 4mn 5s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 1 999 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 4 587 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 29.784 fps
Resolution : 24 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.073
Stream size : 58.9 MiB (93%)
Title : (C) 2007 Google Inc. v08.13.2007.
Encoded date : UTC 2009-01-14 20:12:45
Tagged date : UTC 2009-01-14 20:12:48

[Dark Shikari]

They also turned on psy-RD, though they're still not using weightb.

[Atak_Snajpera]

What exact settings did they use? Unfortunately mediainfo can not help.

[Atak_Snajpera]

I'm really disappointed regarding youtube encoder. I uploaded couple Audiosurf videos (1280x720 30fps in MP4 container) and look what I got!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCTtmO0P1lE&fmt=22

Video
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 5mn 59s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 2 199 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 4 375 Kbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 21.773 fps
Resolution : 24 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.110
Stream size : 94.8 MiB (96%)
Title : (C) 2007 Google Inc. v08.13.2007.
Encoded date : UTC 2009-01-26 03:28:05
Tagged date : UTC 2009-01-26 03:28:06


Source
Video
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 4mn 22s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 6 928 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 10.3 Mbps
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16/9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 30.000 fps
Resolution : 24 bits
Colorimetry : 4:2:0
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.251
Stream size : 217 MiB (96%)
Writing library : x264 core 65 r1074M b6bb3d4
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=7 / psy_rd=1.0:0.0 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / mbaff=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=0 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=3 / wpredb=1 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=25 / scenecut=40(pre) / rc=crf / crf=22.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=10 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / vbv_maxrate=25000 / vbv_bufsize=25000 / ip_ratio=1.40 / pb_ratio=1.30 / aq=1:1.00
Encoded date : UTC 2009-01-25 22:34:10
Tagged date : UTC 2009-01-25 22:34:12

[um3k]

Oddly enough, I don't think it dropped any frames. Look at the duration. It just slowed down the video. Must be a bug or some such.

[LogicDeLuxe]

I have a few questions:
Is the bitrate the only thing, Youtube decides on whether there is or is not a HD link available?
Will interlaced video work, or should I upload progressive only?
In case of progressive only, would it be a good idea to bob it before encoding, ie. making it 50i for PAL or 60i for NTSC sources?
Is there a way to upload a video that Youtube won't re encode at all?

[Placio74]

Is the bitrate the only thing, Youtube decides on whether there is or is not a HD link available?
Video resolution - minimum 1280x720 (16:9 AR) and 1280x960 (4:3 AR).

Is there a way to upload a video that Youtube won't re encode at all?
No.

[LogicDeLuxe]

Video resolution - minimum 1280x720 (16:9 AR) and 1280x960 (4:3 AR).Too bad. 2Mbps would be good for standard DVD resolution also. There are still many artifacts visible in the high resolution videos (although much less then the lower quality versions). A well made DVD shows more detail, despite the lower resolution.

Another thing I noticed is that the decoder could be more efficient. I have frequently dropped frames when playing on Youtube (video completely loaded) while Nero Showtime plays the same video flawless.

And yet another strange thing, I noticed on Youtube recently: There are some videos with a standard and a high quality version. The high quality version has a better image quality, but audio in mono while the standard version plays stereo. How could that be? I thought, standard video is always 22kHz mono on Youtube.

[Placio74]

...
And yet another strange thing, I noticed on Youtube recently: There are some videos with a standard and a high quality version. The high quality version has a better image quality, but audio in mono while the standard version plays stereo. How could that be? I thought, standard video is always 22kHz mono on Youtube.

Sometime (rarely) instead standard format, played is format 34 (FLV with AVC/AAC, same resolution as standard, audio 22,05 KHz but stereo.

At this moment as HQ is:
- format 6 - FLV with H.263/MP3, same resolution as old HQ (format 18), higher video bitrate, audio 44,1 KHz but mono
- or format 35 - FLV with AVC/AAC, possible higher resolution as old HQ (640x360), higher audio and video bitrate, audio 44,1 Khz stereo.

However, I do not know what exactly determines conversion to format 6, and as to format 35.
Some vids are always converted into a format 35 (even when source have horrible quality) and some vids are always converted into a format 6 (even when source have good quality).

[MauiNick]

What software can I use to get my videos in this format?

[Atak_Snajpera]

Ok. This time i remuxed all my .mp4 to .mkv. These play ok
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO1dev57tHw&fmt=22
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIXGFHGuhK4&fmt=22

My advice for people is DO NOT UPLOAD IN MP4 format. USE MKV INSTEAD.

[DJ Bobo]

Anyone getting a decent framerate with HD videos in full screen mode?!

[sumawo13]

Anyone getting a decent framerate with HD videos in full screen mode?!

It's funny, but the framerate used to be fine on my Q6600 and now it's crap. Don't know what that's about.

[cweb]

Ok. This time i remuxed all my .mp4 to .mkv. These play ok
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO1dev57tHw&fmt=22
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIXGFHGuhK4&fmt=22

My advice for people is DO NOT UPLOAD IN MP4 format. USE MKV INSTEAD.

So now we can upload in mkv? This is good news!

[tgcujo]

So they encode the videos at 1280x720 but present them to you at 853x480? Wouldn't they look better encoded at 853x480 then? Is there any good reason except for "LOOK ITS IN EACH-DEE"?

[2Bdecided]

Yes, you're supposed to click "full screen"! ;)

They're not going to have a default page layout with a width of 1280 pixels.

Cheers,
David.

[Flux]

It's funny, but the framerate used to be fine on my Q6600 and now it's crap. Don't know what that's about.
I have an old Athlon Barton 3000+ processor and HD-videos stutter a lot in Youtube, but when I download the video and play it with MPC, it is smooth with full frame rate. Yes, I waited the stream to load ahead quite a lot and even to the end before playing, but it doesn't help at all.

[tgcujo]

Yes, you're supposed to click "full screen"! ;)

They're not going to have a default page layout with a width of 1280 pixels.

Cheers,
David.

Yeah but even in full screen, wouldn't up sized 852x480 look better then upsized 720p considering the lower bitrate combined with the fact that youtube often has to process a sub-par source, seems like its just a gimmick really to me.

[manono]

If you're talking about their widescreen window, it's 640x360.

[mikelinley]

I did not know that YouTube had gone HD. I am headed over there to check out right now since I just got a new HD laptop...sweeeet!

[2Bdecided]

Normal Quality:
Window = 640x360
16x9 Stream = 320x180
4x3 Stream = 320x240

High Quality:
Window = 640x360
16x9 Stream = 480x270
4x3 Stream = 480x360

HD:
Window = 854x479
16x9 Stream = 1280x720
4x3 Stream = 960x720


I have the same problem here with the HD streams - they are unusable within the YouTube website, but play fine in VLC if I download them.

It's annoying, because all streams default to "normal quality", with HD streams having the "watch in HD" option, but no "watch in High Quality" option. So most "normal" users will have the choice between lousy (normal!) quality and stuttering HD. Adding &fmt=35 to the end of the URL usually (not always) gives you the "high quality" version, but how many "normal" users are going to do that? It's a great disincentive to uploading in HD.

Cheers,
David.