YouTube - trying to get 640x480

A-Scott wrote on 3/27/2012, 1:18 PM
I'm finally ready to put a video project up on YouTube. My workflow is Fraps capture 800x600 -> Cineform 800x600. I used Handbrake for the resize/render to 640x480 .mp4 following the musicvid's excellent tutorial. I am extremely happy with the quality of Handbrake's output.

I uploaded a "test" segment to YouTube. So far I'm only seeing a 480x360 version with unpleasant artifacts. I tried uploading a 800x600 render hoping the larger size might trigger YouTube to create a 640x480 version. Nope - I still get a 480x360 video. There is a 480p option for YouTube playback. It doesn't seem to matter.

I downloaded the .mp4 back to my computer and confirmed it was 480x360.

Is this is good as it gets for SD 4:3 renders?

(I know I'm behind the curve by not going HD. When I started this project 2 years ago I was using an older, slower PC. I decided I would settle for SD.)

Comments

A-Scott wrote on 3/28/2012, 6:52 PM
I've been doing research on this problem since I posted.

There certainly is a problem getting 480p for h.264 uploads in SD. No, YouTube will *not* eventually get around to it. I uploaded a 480p video many months ago and it remains 320p to this day.

For various reasons, my video is 600p which is halfway between 480p and 720p. I re-rendered and upsampled to 720p. Success! YouTube gave me a 720p that looks reasonably close to the original 600p. (Well, at least I didn't cringe.) Also, the 480p playback now looks like a proper 480p render (but not as good as the 720p).

For what it's worth, I tried an even larger upsample to 864p. YouTube converted it to 720p.

Bottom line: Any h.264 that is less than 720p will be converted to 320p (skipping over 480p). Other codecs may fare better, but YouTube has issues with h.264.

B.Verlik wrote on 3/28/2012, 10:30 PM
You could create a window within a 1280x720 frame, that would be 640x480, send it in as 720p and they will crank out a 720p version.. Just put a huge black frame around it.
Yeah...... cheesy workaround.
NickHope wrote on 3/29/2012, 12:34 AM
The last time I uploaded H.264 at 480p, YouTube created a 480p version for me, no problem ( ). But it was back in 2009.

But there is a problem when you embed 480p. The last time I tested this I found that I had to embed a player at least 684px wide before YouTube would switch from serving the 360p version to the 480p version.

Anyway in your case I would definitely upscale to 720p. I am about to deinterlace and upscale a lot of 576i PAL DV to 720p for YouTube. I don't believe you need to add any black bars down the sides. I think YouTube will treat a video as HD even if it is narrow.
farss wrote on 3/29/2012, 5:18 AM
I uploaded a 480p video a few weeks back and it came out as 480p but with a problemo which seems maybe related to what others are seeing, a few columns of pixels on the RH side of the frame a duplicated. Not the end of world I guess but never had any issue with 720p, only reason I made this one 480p is it is LONG. I made the frame size 854x480,

Bob.
NickHope wrote on 3/29/2012, 9:31 AM
Are you sure that isn't a Flash Player problem Bob? I've had a few funnies around the borders with that (but probably full screen). What format did you upload to them?
A-Scott wrote on 3/29/2012, 10:26 AM
Thanks for the replies, folks. A few additional points...

I determined that I was getting 320p by downloading the YouTube-created .mp4 and examining its properties. I wasn't determining based on how YouTube served the video via the player. However, I did note that going full screen and requesting 480p didn't do squat.

My video is 4:3. I upsampled it to 960x720 (still 4:3 - no tricks or pillaring). YouTube gave me a nice 4:3 "HD" render at 720p. Perhaps a 16:9 video would be handled differently with respect to 480p.

While googling, I discovered others with the same complaint (which led me to the suggestion to upsample.) Other people also suggested that this was a codec issue, and that MPEG2 seemed to more reliably produce a 480p version.

farss wrote on 3/29/2012, 3:30 PM
"Are you sure that isn't a Flash Player problem Bob?"

Same PC plays all the other 480p content from YT just fine including the 720p of mine that YT have downconverted.

"What format did you upload to them?"

H.264 from the Sony AVC encoder same as always. The file I uploaded plays just fine. My only thought is maybe it has something to do with the 854 dimension not being divisable by 4. 854x480 is what's recommended for 16:9 480p content so I'm at a bit of a loss.

Bob.