“What format should I upload my videos in to get the best quality from YouTube and other sites?”
I get this question ALL THE TIME.
Follow these guidelines and you should have great results.
1. YouTube (newest) recommended settings are:
- MPEG4
- 640 x 480 resolution
- 64k Mono or 128k Stereo MP3 audio
- 30 frames per second
2. I upload the videos in these formats (listed in order of preference from high to low):
- MPEG4
- QuickTime
- AVI
- WMV
- DivX
- MPEG2
- RealMedia
- Flash
4. Keep an aspect ratio of 4:3 (640 x 480, 480 x 360, 800 x 600, etc.), otherwise the quality of your video will be degraded.
5. YouTube now has a Hi-Res Mode. This means YouTube creates 2 new copies of your video to suit high and low speed connections:
- 448 x 336 pixels, Flash 7 video @ 900Kbps. Audio @ 44.1KHz Mono.
- 480 x 360 pixels, H.264 video @ 512Kbps. Audio @ 44.1KHz Stereo.
Most of the other sites follow a similar formula.
Just remember YouTube limits the length of a video to 10 minutes. That’s a good rule of thumb anyway – keep them shorter than that!
Sites such as Viddler supports long videos and large uploads. I get EXCELLENT results from Viddler if I want to embed a video from that program on a page.
June 29th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Excellent timing. I’m working on my first submission right now.
Thanks.
June 30th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Hi,
Great info.
Just wanted to ask… Doesn’t youtube accept wmv files?
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Thanks for the tips
John
Her’s my gift in exchange:
Group invitation – for traders:
http://groups.to/daytraderskickass/
July 24th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Good info, just what I needed thanks. I’m using this free video conversion service (all online) http://youconvertit.com/OnlineVideo.aspx hope it helps someone.
SG
August 5th, 2008 at 4:24 am
Hey,
David Greenwood of ProductionProductions for The Debt Reduction Store.
In the way of clarification I assume you Mean MPEG-4 Basic as opposed to MP4 (ISMA) right? If so, at what data rate (Kbits/sec.) and should it be optimized for download or should I just let them encode for download on their end? Also should it be keyframed? If so @ every ? frames or should it be set to Automatic?
Furthermore, what field order do they prefer; odd (upper field first), even (lower filed first), or single field? I’m assuming Even but I don’t know if they encode to a single frame or not.
With a handshake in mind,
David Greenwood
Exec. Producer,
ProductionProductions
August 13th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
I use Adobe Premiere Pro. Anyone else using this? What is the best format. I can export mpeg4, but not with mp3 audio. What are my best options?
August 16th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Thanks for the information. I always thought that MP4 was a lower quality video. It all seems pretty much the same to me regardless of what format I compress my video to. Anyway, I appreciate the service and the useful information that you provide.
August 28th, 2008 at 6:22 pm
Just went to perform my first local upload and was then informed that there is a 100% chance the uploads of more than 100MB fail?? What am I missing, there is certainly not much to a video of 100 MB or less?
September 5th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
WOW THIS SOFTWEAR IS THA SH*T…I SPEND SO MUCH TIME UPLOADING I WILL BE ONE OF YOUR LOYAL CUSTOMERS
September 9th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
TG is great. You are constantly adding new services and features. THis is my one stop shop for all my marketing needs.
September 12th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I’m using Camtasia 3 to prepare my video, and there doesn’t seem to be an option for MPEG4 listed… Just AVI, (too big) WMV, and MOV + Flashes. How the heck to I get Camtasia to give me the MPEG4 option?