Best export settings for high quality youTube video

Hello All,

I'm finally done creating the first episode of our retro-gaming show and I just wanted to get some opinions on the best way for me to export the finished product to youTube if my goal is to have maximum quality (even if the file size is large and it takes a while to upload). My video is 1080p 60 fps. I have read that share -> export media with a video codec of H. 264 is the way to get the "rawest" file, but that uploading the resulting .mov file to youTube sometimes is problematic (like youTube might cause the audio levels or synch to be off etc...although I didn't seem to experience this with the first video I put up using this method). I have also seen some people recommend opening the resulting file in quicktime and then re-exporting it; is this what I should do?

Also, note that I have not purchased compressed yet (which yields another option in the share menu), but I will if this will yield the best quality. Any help would be much appreciated; thank you!

Use the Share menu's YouTube option.

Ahh, so its that simple, and will give me the best quality? Okay, assuming I go with this, normally when you are uploading a youTube video via their website you can edit all the videos information while its uploading (and there are more things to edit than is available in the upload youTube tab in FCX)... is youTube smart to allow me to go to my channel webpage and edit the meta data of the incoming video while FCX is uploading it? Oh, and I guess I select Multi-pass encoding under compression if i want quality?

Take a look at it's window, you'll be impressed. I've found it does a pretty good job. The one drawback I've found is that it takes a very long time.

You can also just export a QT movie, and do this same thing in Compressor, which I've been told is a little big faster.

Yeah okay. All I care about is quality; so even if it takes a long time if you say that the quality by doing it this way is the best, that's what I'll go with. I also made sure to change my project settings to Stereo and not Surround, as I've heard that's what caused all the youTube audio weirdness.

I know a local PR firm here that likes to do the "best, top notch quality full HD" videos with gigantic files sizes.....They look great on their computers, but nobody can watch them on the web because playback is so choppy and stutters and basically doesn't load well on even reasonably fast internet connections. Just a word of caution

Don't youTube videos appear in lower quality until you select a higher resolution; hence averting this problem?

I doubt it, but I don't really use youtube. I would encode your videos to a very good quality but also a manageable bitrate so your target audience contains the maximum number of viewers who won't have issues with the internet speed. And this is almost certainly NOT the highest possible quality. A video with lots of motion and effects, etc. will require a higher quality setting and hence have a higher bitrate and file size to accommodate the same perceived quality as a video with minimal movement in it.

I think uploading to youTube via the built in share feature of FCX doesn't work properly: it took 8 hours to go through and even though it said it was 100% successful youTube appears to be hanging in "processing". I think I'm going to purchase the Compressor 4 add on and try that. If my footage is 1080p / 60 fps and consists of a lot of action (video game footage with multiple picture in picture overlays), what would you guys recommend for compressor settings? Thanks!

YouTube needs to re-encode the file that you send to them. The only way to avoid this is to upload at their published specs, but even then YouTube needs to create your lower quality versions. If my memory serves me right the 1080p spec for YouTube is a .mp4 file (so it can be used for flash and html5) and no more than 10Mbits with audio being AAC at 128Kbps. This should be the default export to YouTube setting. Just know upload to YouTube with fcpx/compressor is slow. But nice if you have it go over night. I always use compressor (I have custom settings I've made for it, if you want) I also use courier to upload to Vimeo and YouTube.

YouTube should do fine with standard H.264 QT files.

scotopia wrote: ... what would you guys recommend for compressor settings?

My current compromise is to upload 720p H.264 with a 5 Mbit/s target data rate. It gives reasonable quality for most users yet expands OK for those who have the bandwidth and want to watch full screen. I did not find a lot of difference between 5 Mbit/s and 10 Mbit/s after youtube (or SmugMug) finished munging with the original upload.

Next month I'll probably be using something different. :whistle:

Using the Export to youtube setting was reasonably fast for me (~20 minutes for a 1 min, 90Mb file), and completed successfully according to Share Monitor, but even 2 hours after Share Monitor said the upload was completed there is no sign of the video in my youtube channel, nor any indication that something is being processed by YouTube. When do the videos show up in YouTube?

Thanks,

Earlgrey

Alternative ways to encode, just throwing the info out there.
www.macprovideo.com/hub/final-cut/prepar...quicktime-compressor

Yes please share your settings @mikey

YouTube's encoding recommendations.
support.google.com/youtube/bin/static.py...728585&page=guide.cs

Good article on the subject with additional information provided by Google/YouTube.
www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editoria...124_member_136795161