Is avi with vbr mp3 good for youtube uploads?

[orion44]

I have a choice between avi with vbr mp3 and avi with cbr mp3 format for uploading to youtube.

Which one would you recommend between the two?

Can youtube decode properly avi with vbr mp3?

[huhn]

youtube is reencoding every video anyway.
so i recommand PCM or a lossless codec.
and for the container MKV(WEBM) or MP4 youtube is using them too.

youtube should be able to decode nearly everything. it is using FFMPEG as far as i know.

[orion44]

Thanks.

Do you know what specific video and audio codec youtube uses for encoding?

[LoRd_MuldeR]

They create various versions of the clip, for different platforms and/or bandwidths. Those differ in resolution, bitrate and format.

Formats they currently use include MP4 with H.264 video and AAC audio as well as MKV with VP9 video and Vorbis audio. Quite possible they use HEVC for "Ultra HD" clips on supported devices, not sure.

[huhn]

opus audio is used too.

[raffriff42]

It's not ideal. http://www.virtualdub.org/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=25

For various reasons VBR audio both is and isn't supported in the file format,
and the way that it is implemented in practice is also both supported and not supported.

Besides, AVI uploads to YouTube have had occasional problems with audio losing sync or missing the last few seconds.

H.264 video + aac or pcm audio in MOV works well though.