Uploading to Youtube & Vimeo with best quality?

Hello!

I've tried different methods to export a video to youtube in 1080p but it always looses quality compared to the Master file.

I've tried using the "share to youtube" option that's on FCPX but it looses quality and I've tried uploading the file with the h264 settings and it looses quality as well.

I've tried uploading to Vimeo using the "share to vimeo" option and I see a loss of quality too.

What else can I do?

Thank you!

What is the format and duration of your original project.

This may or may not give you useful information.
www.macprovideo.com/hub/final-cut/prepar...quicktime-compressor

Ben,

Again I think we would all appreciate you posting actual information rather than a link to your website.
This Forum will not become a link farm

Peter

You don't mention what problems you're seeing with your uploaded videos, but if you're not happy with the built-in options, then you need to customize them - but I think that requires QuickTime Pro or Compressor. This generally would consist of (depending on the format and length of the project, as Ben suggested) upping the data rate of the file you create for upload. This will get better quality, although with the drawback of a larger file size. Since the uploaded file is recompressed again you need to send them the highest quality file your time/bandwidth/account, etc. will support. Off the top of my head, I think the default is for a 5000kps data rate - depending on whether it's 1080p or 720p, 3 minutes or 30, etc. I usually set it to between 7000 and 10,000. Files with less active movement in the content can get away with lower rates.

You can do this in Quicktime Pro, or better yet with Compressor. With Compressor ($50) you can make custom settings and then add those to the Destinations in the Share feature of FCPX. Or you can export a master file from FCPX and use that directly in Compressor.

The problem I kept having with YouTube was that its recompression for the web would darken my videos, often by what looked like about 1/2 to 3/4 of a stop. I experimented with changing the gamma in Compressor to compensate, but was never happy with the results. I now use Vimeo, which to me seems to only darken them by about 1/4 of a stop.

Youtube has published recommended upload specs which are fairly difficult to find. Sorry if this seems link farmish but I think it's important for people to bookmark.

support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?rd=1

Note they differentiate between "standard" and "high quality" recommendations.

Standard 1080p is 8000kbps whereas
High Quality 1080p is 50,000kbps

I've read elsewhere that one reason for the extremely high bit rates for High Quality expressed by Youtube is that as they improve their encoding technology they may use your upload as a master to re-encode your file.

Youtube recommends High Profile CABAC encoding with 2 consecutive B-Frames. This is not possible with Apple Compressor nor at all with Apple's H.264 encoding. For this kind of quality one would be better off using Telestream Episode, Sorenson Squeeze, HandBrake and, I believe, Adobe Media Encoder. Sadly Apple's H.264 encoder is the least efficient, least flexible, on the market. Of course at such high bit rates it's hard to see the difference but, none the less, Youtube makes clear what they want, ideally, and I thought the community should know those specs.

Thank you all for your comments.

I've been using compressor 4 for a while and I guess it was the best solution for my problem.

But right now I'm trying to compress a video and for the 6 time I'm getting an error: compressor failed quicktime error -50

I've already rebooted and waited one day to try again but it keeps happening the error while it's compressing.

Any idea why?

I'm using clips from GoPro and Canon 600D on the same video, and the GoPro videos have 29 FPS and the Canon have 25 FPS. Could that be a problem?

Thank you

Type all that information a second time, Peter? Really? That's a lot of information to re-type.

I will not have this Forum turned into a vast list of links that link to the poster's own webpages or commercial sites.

Maybe asking exactly what the problem was and then answering with only the relevant information would be more useful.

One liner answers with off site links will get deleted.

I would like to better understand this link farm problem. To me this forum has been a source of help and information over the years and yes, this included links as well. Ben answers many question and has been of great help to many people. You, Peter, yourself frequently link to e.g. the great guys from Ripple Training.

I think that links are the nature of the web and I agree with Ben that information doesn't have to be retyped or exclusively typed.

The links I followed so far never made me turn my back on fcp.co - instead they made me check your site even more often. Because I love fcp.co so much I'm not sure what you are afraid of - losing visits? Really? I can't imagine that.

Does this mean that helpful links are now banned if not accompanied by at least two lines of blabla?

same question here..
i tired upload video to YT, my video its too bad in 320p..
i use FCPX and compressor
i use canon 60d (24f)
please help me...
give me best setting for compressor

One thing everyone needs to understand is that Youtube and Vimeo are ALWAYS going to look worse than your master file, especially at 360p. 360p is kind of the "lowest common denominator" format Youtube uses for the large percentage of viewers and it runs at an incredibly low bit rate. So if you have complex or fast motions, you're gonna see some artifacting. Increasing the playback resolution on the Youtube watch page to 480p or above will alleviate this quite a bit, but it will still be worse than your master file.

What I do is export a full resolution QT file in ProRes422. I then run that through MPEG Streamclip (free) to make a 1080p MP4 file. For some reason MPEG Streamclip's B-frame feature confuses Youtube and will cause your audio to be out of sync by about 3 frames. So don't enable B-frames no matter what the Youtube compression guidelines tell you. I limit the bitrate to 15mbps, don't let it scale down and make sure the audio is at 256kbps and 48khz. I generally have a 2.5 GB file to upload to Youtube.

Now that may sound crazy, especially when Youtube's playback is at a much lower bitrate than 15mbps. But you really need to give Youtube the best that you can to work with. Garbage in, garbage out. I don't know what settings or bitrates that FCPX assigns the program if you upload it straight from the app. I could never do that because I want more control. I also like being able to create poster frames/thumbnails as it uploads, enable monetization and all of that good stuff.

raposanegra wrote: Hello!

I've tried different methods to export a video to youtube in 1080p but it always looses quality compared to the Master file.

Yes, it does, and always will. You'll see that YouTube's playback quality is horrible as soon as you pay any attention.

No matter what you do, if you send YouTube a 1080p file, it's going to compress it again, to just 2.5Mbps for the video stream. There's going to be little difference if you upload a 15Mbps or a 200Mbps file, and since FCP X outputs about 20Mbps, at least on the "Computer" output option, it's plenty. Don't upload a 720p file! YouTube will compress that even further, so always send the best you can.

Vimeo is better, at least if you're a plus member, because its video stream is 3.75Mbps. Noticeably better, if still a long way from 20Mbps. Only problem is, you need to enable 1080p manually, it's plus-only, and there's then no 720p option. Only one HD option is allowed, and some people's computers can't handle 1080p.

Best option: If you're a Plus member, all other Vimeo members can download the file you uploaded. So you *can* offer a file for pixel peepers if you want to. YouTube for everyone, Vimeo for quality, enable downloads for the best quality possible.

Another thing to note with Vimeo is that when you're a plus member they limit the number of views you can have to 250,000 for your entire channel. You're also limited to 50GB worth of uploads. Kind of weird to be paying for those limitations. If it's a video that you want to get a lot of views, don't use Vimeo Plus! I have no idea if the free version imposes the same or worse limitations.

For what it's worth, I open my FCPX master file (usually a 1080p 30p or 60p Prores 422HQ or sometimes simply Prores 422) into Quicktime 7. I then export H.264 for streaming with a bitrate set to either 8,000 (if the video does not have many effects layers, transitions and significant motion) or I set to 10,000 if it does. I turn off frame re-ordering and set keyframes at 29. My original frame rate content is usually 29.97 or 59.94 and I always upload to YouTube the same frame rate I filmed in. I typically have decent results this way.

Bear in mind, the original master can have a bit rate up to 500 Mbit/s or higher, so restricting your file to 8000 or 10000 means significant compression.


You can also do this same thing in Compressor, probably with a bit more tweaking but I have found the above method works well. Quicktime 7 and the new Quicktime can peacefully coexist on your system.

A free Basic account with Vimeo is much more limited than the paid accounts.