Resize or upload?

[Newbish]

My resolution is 1440x900. I record game videos. I wonder if I should resize them or I should upload them as they are to Youtube?

By resize I mean to 1280x720, to fill the whole screen.

Would appreciate a "Why" too. :)

[TheSkiller]

1440x900 has an aspect ratio of 16:10, while 1280x720 is 16:9. That means you cannot resize to the latter without introducing distortion.

You should resize to 1152x720 and upload the video like that. It will then appear as "720p" with it's original 16:10 aspect on YouTube.
Of course you can also upload as is in 1440x900 but I'm quite sure that YouTube would just resize it to 1152x720 as well anyway.

If you really want/need to fill the YouTube window player you should just record in 1280x720 in the first place. :)

[Newbish]

Yea, that's an option, but unfortunately on an LCD, visuals appear quite blurry if they aren't running on a native resolution. :/ In other words, I couldn't be as objective about the graphics as if I played the game on the native resolution, as it's blurred as if I had a piece of distorted plastic on my screen.

Do you think 1152x720 is an okay resolution to upload gameplay videos? I mean, it's not a native resolution for any (or very few) monitors, and it would appear quite cropped. I doubt that people generally enjoy cropped videos?

Which option do you think would be the best/most rational?

[vivan]

There is another one option: run 1280х720 at native resolution, without scaing - with black borders from all sides.

I mean, it's not a native resolution for any (or very few) monitors720p displays are really rare too.

it would appear quite cropped.It's not cropped - it's letterboxed. And it's not bad at all - just tiny black borders.

Which option do you think would be the best/most rational?I think resizing to 1152x720 before uploading.

[Newbish]

Hm, both 1152 and 1440 pixel videos look really bad on Youtube, both got letterbox sides. Haven't seen any other videos from quality providers that are like that.

[LoRd_MuldeR]

I think Youtube only offers 720p (1280x720) and 1080p (1920x1080) as "HD" resolutions. Everything else gets resized and/or letterboxed after the upload.

Wondering why you captured your game recording at 1440x900. To avoid resizing, you really should be capturing at 1280x720 or 1920x1080.

But, as most screens are either 1920x1080 (16:9) or 1920×1200 (16:10) nowadays, the 1280x720 would be resized (upscale) when watching the clip "full screen".

Therefore 1920x1080 by far is the best resolution to capture, I think. Would be displayed on a 1920x1080 (16:9) screen 1:1 and without any black borders.

On a 1920x1200 (16:9) screen it would be displayed with black borders though, but at least no resizing does happen, so the video will still look perfectly "sharp".

1680x1050 screens, also pretty common, are a lost case anyway, given that Youtube delivers either 720p or 1080p...

[blubb444]

I think Youtube only offers 720p (1280x720) and 1080p (1920x1080) as "HD" resolutions. Everything else gets resized and/or letterboxed after the upload.

Wondering why you captured your game recording at 1440x900. To avoid resizing, you really should be capturing at 1280x720 or 1920x1080.

But, as most screens are either 1920x1080 (16:9) or 1920×1200 (16:10) nowadays, the 1280x720 would be resized (upscale) when watching the clip "full screen".

Therefore 1920x1080 by far is the best resolution to capture, I think. Would be displayed on a 1920x1080 (16:9) screen 1:1 and without any black borders.

On a 1920x1200 (16:9) screen it would be displayed with black borders though, but at least no resizing does happen, so the video will still look perfectly "sharp".

I'm pretty sure he's capturing from a laptop where "strange" resolutions like 1440x900 are actually common. Too bad Youtube downscales everything that is between 720 and 1079 lines to 720p, so he can either downscale to 720p, upscale to 1080p (which introduces some blurriness in both cases) or he can add borders to make it 1080p.
EDIT: Cropping to 720p might be an option too if a 1280x720 frame can be found so that all important information from the game (like text, health bar...) is still inside.
Another stupid limitation of Youtube to be considered too is 30p, whereas most games run at 60fps or higher so it makes no sense to upload a 60p file to Youtube, unless they keep the original file and re-introduce a 60p option sometime in the future.

[TheSkiller]

Hm, both 1152 and 1440 pixel videos look really bad on Youtube, both got letterbox sides. No they don't get pillarboxed (actually it's called pillarboxing if the bars are at the sides rather than top/bottom where it's called letterboxing). YouTube never hard-letterboxes or pillarboxes. Of course in the YouTube player it looks like they are because the YouTube player has a fixed ratio of 16:9 but the video itself would still be 16:10 centered in YouTube's 16:9 player. If you watch such a video in full screen mode on your 16:10 display you still get full screen, no black bars.

What this means is, 1152x720 is fine but if you are bothered with it not filling YouTube's stupid fixed player ratio then you have to record and play in 1280x720 (or any other 16:9 resolution, but preferably one that YouTube supports natively) and have a slightly less sharp display while recording (I don't think that's a problem by the way, much more important than recording in super duper high resolution is a stable frame rate while recording so that the video doesn't have those ugly lags so many gameplay videos in full HD have).


I think Youtube only offers 720p (1280x720) and 1080p (1920x1080) as "HD" resolutions. Everything else gets resized and/or letterboxed after the uploadResized yes, but not letter- or pillarboxed.

1680x1050 screens, also pretty common, are a lost case anyway, given that Youtube delivers either 720p or 1080p...But those would get full screen with a 16:10 video like 1152x720.

[jmac698]

I just found this thread at a random, but I should point out that you can record at 1280x720. It will look blurry on your monitor fullscreen, but it won't look blurry in the capture. That's because your monitors' rescaling issues have nothing to do with the actual image on the screen. If you playback your same video, except in a normal player window where the pixels are displayed 1:1, your video will now look clear!

Having the game generate the proper size is far preferable to any type of video resizing.