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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?
Simmerville on Youtube | My blog is updated weekly: Simmerville's Sims<br>a.jpg

Comments

  • KhymKhym Posts: 5 New Member
    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 :)
  • SimmervilleSimmerville Posts: 11,644 Member
    Khym 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...
    Simmerville on Youtube | My blog is updated weekly: Simmerville's Sims<br>a.jpg
  • KhymKhym Posts: 5 New Member
    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?
  • SimmervilleSimmerville Posts: 11,644 Member
    Khym 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.
    Simmerville on Youtube | My blog is updated weekly: Simmerville's Sims<br>a.jpg
  • KhymKhym Posts: 5 New Member
    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?
  • SimmervilleSimmerville Posts: 11,644 Member
    edited March 2021
    I checked the settings again, fps was only set to 25 so I'm now trying 60 for my next vid. The file gets much bigger though so maybe YT will compress it even more... (no change of file size when changing 25fps to 60fps).

    I also noted that the Filmora software has a dedicated option for extracting directly to misc platforms including YT. I don't want to upload directly, but I checked the settings for that option and found 720p. In my ordinary routine option I don't find anything regarding "p", so I wonder what that is? I find 7000kbps - is that related?

    Edit: I could not see a difference locally (not yet uploaded) between 25fps and 60fps. I guess frames are more essential during game footage than in editing/extracting.
    Simmerville on Youtube | My blog is updated weekly: Simmerville's Sims<br>a.jpg
  • haneulhaneul Posts: 1,952 Member
    edited March 2021
    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
  • SimmervilleSimmerville Posts: 11,644 Member
    Thanks @haneul

    I'm on a low end computer and without even checking the frame rate while gaming, I know it's not tip top.

    My main issue is that when I edited and extractd a video it looks great technically. After uploading it, it performs not so great on Youtube. So, my problem is not low fps in-game, but probably the tech settings while uploading to YT. I did not notice this until the recent videos, so maybe there were changes done at YT? Because I never adjusted settings of my editing software, even with only 25 fps I was happy with the quality of rather long videos on YT.

    As I can't find anything "p" in the extract settings, what does "p" stand for? Assuming it's not "pixels" as in monitor resolution, because that is named something else in my software.
    Simmerville on Youtube | My blog is updated weekly: Simmerville's Sims<br>a.jpg
  • haneulhaneul Posts: 1,952 Member
    @Simmerville 720p refers to the resolution/quality. It is 1280 x 720 pixels, even though the p may technically stand for something else.

    Which video do you think is low quality? Because your videos on your channel look fine to me and are 720p.
  • SimmervilleSimmerville Posts: 11,644 Member
    edited March 2021
    Oki, my monitor resolution is 1080 (height) so I changed the setting from x720 to x1080. I probably reduced it earlier to create smaller files. but I'll test uploading a future video at the 1080p to see if it helps.

    The one video that made me aware of the problem, was this one:
    https://youtu.be/tfD1zAxI6wI

    Basically screenshots (but I guess the upload process can't tell the difference from stills and animations) I think the general footage quality is much reduced from the original video that is on my PC, but the worst is the transmissions and even the text animations, they feel choppy and blurry. They look fine on my local copy, though.

    PS: Loved the animations in your dancing video :)
    Simmerville on Youtube | My blog is updated weekly: Simmerville's Sims<br>a.jpg
  • haneulhaneul Posts: 1,952 Member
    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.
  • SimmervilleSimmerville Posts: 11,644 Member
    Thanks for lots of useful input. Hm, could it be my computer messing up? Just don't see the relevance. I'll experiment some more with settings.

    Thanks again.
    Simmerville on Youtube | My blog is updated weekly: Simmerville's Sims<br>a.jpg
  • KhymKhym Posts: 5 New Member
    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 :)
  • ajaxpostajaxpost Posts: 4,200 Member
    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. 🤔
  • SimmervilleSimmerville Posts: 11,644 Member
    ajaxpost 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 on Youtube | My blog is updated weekly: Simmerville's Sims<br>a.jpg
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