Okay so you may be wondering what this post is about. Well it’s quite simple with this post is a guide for uploading the best quality that you can do for youtube.
Now this guide is for digital sources only. For analog sources you have to take an extra step in deinterlacing your video for best quality you can use this guide but I can’t insure the quality of the upload.
Now as you all are probably aware if you are active on teamliquid.net that my posting is plagued with spelling and grammar errors that make things a bit incoherent. So if you find something confusing in this guide leave a post in the thread with the correction or better version. If I don’t end up changing it leave me a P.M. for the fastest response.
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[1#]: Table of Contents
Use “2#” (without quotations to jump to the Getting Started section)
[2#]: Getting started
[2.1#]MeGUI
[3#]: Youtube HD (1280wide x 720high)
[3.1#]: Using MeGUI
[3.2#] Common steps
[3.25#]Editing techniques */ haven’t added it yet/*
[3.3#]:x264
[3.4#]:XviD
[4#]: Summary
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[2#]: Getting started
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x264: x264 is free H.264/ MPEG-4 Part 10 AVC (Advanced Video Coding) encoder originally developed in 2003 for the sake of this x264 will always go into a .MP4 format with AAC audio
XviD: XviD is free MPEG-4 Part 2 ASP (Advance Simple Profile) encoder originally developed in the mid 90’s for the sake of this XviD will always go into an .Avi folder with MP3 audio
[2.1#] Me-GUI: MeGUI which can be found here
http://sourceforge.net/projects/megui/
is an general purpose GUI (Graph User Interface) which supports AVS scripts and can transcode MPEG-4 ASP (xvid), MPEG-4 AVC (x264), AAC, MP2, MP3, Vorbis, AC3 and Aud-X audio and various common containers support (MP4, MKV, AVI). In our case we will be dealing with the x264 an open source AVC video encoder FAAC for audio encoding into a .Mp4 format for youtube or if you would like a .avi using XviD and LameMp3.
Upon first use you will find it will prompt you to update all the missing .exe and .dll which it will do mostly automatically when you hit the update button when updating you will notice that it will ask if you want to import any profiles. I suggest you important all that you think you might use these are pet set profiles for a lot of things which is helpful especially when you don’t know what things like B-Frames are and what changing the number does.
Make sure you get the following profiles x264: DXVA-HD-Fast/ DXVA-SD-Fast and XviD: 2pass HQ
Also it may ask you to install AviSynth which doesn’t do automatically because it is a program that installs onto windows it doesn’t just run out of the Me-GUI instance so it’s not going to auto install things like that.
You can get AviSynth here
http://sourceforge.net/projects/avisynth2/
*Note* If you don’t have a updated, to at least 2.5, .net framework it will ask to install before use you can update your .net via
http://www.microsoft.com/NET/
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[3#]: Youtube HD (1280wide x 720High)
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Now 1280x720 is the biggest screen size you can get out of youtube and because youtube transcodes their videos so lightly the bigger the better because their videos do not scale well into full screen simply because youtube strips it down to bare minimum information to maintain the picture.
[3.1#]: Using MeGUI
First you have to get MeGUI for this so refer to 2.1# for help on that matter. First you must obtain your video recording. This you should do on your own I might write a guide for using various recording devices like hypercam, guncam, fraps, camstudio, camtasia later. But if you’re just using this from your video camera should just be fine MeGUI accepts many file formats so unless it’s an exotic file format it should work just fine.
[3.2#] Common steps
This you will do regardless.
First go to Tools then to AVISynth Script Creator then hit the … on the new screen that popped up and select your video that you wish to import.
After you select it, it will pop up a screen that previews what is on the video you can close that if you wish.
Now if this is your first time you want to set up your default profile for AVISynth so you can speed up this process the next time you do it, where you see AVISynth profile *scratchpad* click on config.
On the new window that popped up you should be on the template tab I want you to delete everything that is there.
Then we start to add things.
Add
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LoadPlugin("C:\Program Files\AviSynth 2.5\plugins\Convolution3DYV12.dll")
<input>
ConvertToYV12() # if necessary
<resize>
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Then go to the extra set up tab and on resize filter we are going to check it and change it to bicubic (neutral) the reason for this is it’s considered a good overall filter better at reduce when resizing but just fine on super sampling. The reason I don’t use another filter better at super sampling is because those filters make the video near incompressible lanczos(sharp) and lanczos4(sharp) do better in maintains picture quality when super sampling but the only problem is that it makes it more pixelated making it much harder to compress you are welcome to use it if you don't mind bigger file sizes.
If you want to understand more and do more with this take a look at
http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Internal_filters
Now depending on the size of the video most likely we are going to have to resize it manually because you can’t set it to do everything for you. The goal here is to get the width and height of the video to be at least over 1280 width by 720 height.
So first go to the edit tab.
You should see something like this
BicubicResize(width,height,0,0.5) # Bicubic (Neutral)
What you want to do is use this chart to see what screen resolution you are starting out with.
Then you want to find a resolution on this chart or make your own that is bigger then 1280x720 although it is best if you find a resolution that just fits like 1280x1024 or 1280x800 The width should always just be about 1280 because 16: 9 is more or less the widest screen size you can get and usually if you follow the ratio eg. like 16: 9 1.777~ when you resize to fit the width to 1280 you should get a height that is at least 720 or greater.
Now for example
BicubicResize(640,480,0,0.5) > BicubicResize(1280,960,0,0.5) 1280/(640/480)=960
BicubicResize(1680,1050,0,0.5) > BicubicResize(1280,800,0,0.5) 1280/(1280/800)=800
BicubicResize(1280,1024,0,0.5) > BicubicResize(1280,1024,0,0.5) no need to resize.
It should look just like this when you’re done.
Hit save and that part is done.
Then the preview of how it will look will pop up again… just close it if you wish.
[3.2#]:x264
Now you want to select the Encoder settings bar and go to x264: DXVA-HD-Fast.
When you hit okay it will ask if you want to overwrite the profile it’s your choice you’re just changing the bit rate for it.
Then go down to the audio section
There you will press the … and select the video you used so it can use its audio
For this audio at the Encoder settings bar select [/b]FAAC: *strachpad*[/b] I found this one to be the most reliable in encoding a lot of different types of audio sources even thought he nero one is better.
Now you want to hit the cofig button right next to the faac starch pad thing.
And go to ABR and select 256 as your audio rate hit ok
Make sure your extensions are mp4 also now you have to change your audio and video files name so they are not the same.
If you been following along it should look like this
After that you want to hit auto encode make sure the container is mp4 and select the bobble for [/b]Average bit rate[/b] and change it to 2000-3000 preferably I use 3000 personally.
*Note* best quality is nearly guaranteeded at 6000ish kb/s but the difference will be very minimal
*If your video has a lot of still frames of the same thing I suggest you really bump up the bit rate to 5000 8000 because it’s a variable bit rate and youtube requires at least a 1024 constant bit rate to do convert into HD videos but if the video has a “high complexity” like in a video game where it’s constantly moving you can use a much lower one like 1500 or preferably 2000+*
You can always add more quality the more quality you give youtube the better youtube will give you.
Hit Queue
Then go to the Queue tab and hit Start
And you should have gotten your finished mp4 file.
[3.4#]:XviD
For XviD use the same exact steps except for your
Video profile use XviD: 2pass HQ
Audio profile use Lame MP3 VBR 100
And make sure your video and the container are .AVI and you should be good
x264 > XviD in compression you will get the same about file size but x264 will be better quality.
[4#]:Summary
To get YouTube HD
Upload videos at
>=1280x720
>=1024kb/s
Also if you have Vista you can just use Window Movie maker and produce it in HD and it should be just fine =)