Stopping youtube compression

Ace Modder · 24 Jan 2014 at 22:40

Hi

I'm trying to stop youtube from compressing my videos. How do you stop it..

For example, this video on my dropbox to show you the original quality (play it full screen)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/82423665/1.mp4

I've uploaded it to youtube and it looks like this... (run it full screen and in 1080p)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8Z3Q-AwTeM

I know you tube compresses videos, but how do people uplod stuff like this (watch that full screen)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCupJTFm3-4

Energize · 24 Jan 2014 at 22:44

Is something wrong with your GPU? Why does your Skyrim video look like Morrowind graphics?

You can't stop youtube compressing your videos, that's what it's designed to do.

Ace Modder · 24 Jan 2014 at 22:46

My skyrim has some crappy mods, I'm playing about with them at the moment.

The point is the bottom video I linked in my OP doesnt have any compression that I can see.

Energize · 24 Jan 2014 at 22:47

It is heavily compressed I can tell you that.

It looks higher quality than your original dropbox video though, tbh I can't see much difference between your youtube video and your dropbox video.

Playing the videos at full screen is not representative though, you need to compare them at their native resolution.

EDIT - I can't see a 1080p option for your video on youtube, only 720p. Maybe the issue is because the video is being downsized?

Antony101 · 24 Jan 2014 at 22:53

Anyway I can stop YouTube from playing a video in a lower quality than I ask it too while it buffers?

Tried to watch the above video in 1080p but it had finished before YouTube had even switched it to 1080p.

Energize · 24 Jan 2014 at 22:54

Just download the video from youtube with an extension, youtube is a really poor website for actually watching the videos ironically, there are frequent network issues with it.

Antony101 · 24 Jan 2014 at 22:55

I'm trying to watch a playlist with over 200 videos. Downloading them won't be very fun.

Gammawolf · 24 Jan 2014 at 23:56

It has a lot to do with the content of the video, yours contains fast movements with quite a lot of scene changes, where as the one you linked to is mostly fixed camera or slow shots.

I'm not entirely sure about your source though, youtube historically had issue with VFR, which your source is. I'd recapture it with fixed frame rate

Left: Original, Middle: youtube, Right: other youtube video

Ace Modder · 25 Jan 2014 at 00:09

I used shadow play to record the video snip.

Gammawolf · 25 Jan 2014 at 00:40

Change it to constant framerate, you really dont want to be re-encoding variable frame rate

~>Dg<~ · 25 Jan 2014 at 00:40

Ace Modder said:
I used shadow play to record the video snip.

there you go

shadowplay

Sin_Chase · 25 Jan 2014 at 01:09

As a standard YT User you are limited to a certain BitRate.

Partners/Big channels have far better quality available, no point comparing to them.

Not much you can do to be honest, just give YouTube the highest quality/bitrate you can afford to upload on your connection. Ensure you record in native 1080p and upload at that resolution also.

Something Else · 25 Jan 2014 at 01:25

Could render it on your pc in a higher res? I know some youtubers render 1080p gameplay as 1440p or even 4K so that youtube compression doesn't pillage the image as much.

Sin_Chase · 25 Jan 2014 at 01:36

Something Else said:
Could render it on your pc in a higher res? I know some youtubers render 1080p gameplay as 1440p or even 4K so that youtube compression doesn't pillage the image as much.

Don't think this is the case at all. Usually stuff in 4K or a higher than 1080p resolution has either 4K or 'Original Resolution' as a selectable in Quality.

Gammawolf · 25 Jan 2014 at 01:38

Sin_Chase said:
As a standard YT User you are limited to a certain BitRate.

Partners/Big channels have far better quality available, no point comparing to them.

Not much you can do to be honest, just give YouTube the highest quality/bitrate you can afford to upload on your connection. Ensure you record in native 1080p and upload at that resolution also.

The one he compared it to has a lower bitrate

Something Else · 25 Jan 2014 at 01:42

Sin_Chase said:
Don't think this is the case at all. Usually stuff in 4K or a higher than 1080p resolution has either 4K or 'Original Resolution' as a selectable in Quality.

yes I know but what I was saying is if the footage is recorded in say 1080p but then renderd on a pc to be a 1440p bit of footage and then uploaded to youtube, youtube will allow a higher bitrate for the footage due to the higher res so the image will look better.

Rozzy85 · 25 Jan 2014 at 02:05

You video seems to exhibit lots of compression artifacts during the fast motion frames which isn't going to help when it's re-compressed and creates that smearing of the colours. When recording the video you need to make sure it's uncompressed or lossless compressed frames and when reduced in size uses a two-pass encoder. There's also a load of more advanced stuff you can do but it's too much to go into here.

Sin_Chase · 25 Jan 2014 at 02:33

Something Else said:
yes I know but what I was saying is if the footage is recorded in say 1080p but then renderd on a pc to be a 1440p bit of footage and then uploaded to youtube, youtube will allow a higher bitrate for the footage due to the higher res so the image will look better.

What you just said seems to imply the following - Record at 1080p...UPSCALE to 1440p then upload which will then DOWNSCALE back to 1080p.

That's going to DESTROY the quality of the footage.

It's all down to the render. 1080p capture, 1080p render. Variable Bit-Rate at between 10-15,000bit/sec (plenty for YT to work with) and a 2-Pass H264 encode. Job done. If it looks good locally then that is all you can do, what youtube does with ti afterwards is out of your control but what you want to AVOID at all costs is:

- Using avi (DivX/XviD etc) or any other container/codec that YouTube then needs to mess with. Give it H264.
- Uploading in a different resolution to those offered. Upload in 720p or 1080p or if you must use higher resolutions something that fits the 16:9 aspect ratio. A resize will ALWAYS attract a quality hit.
- Messing about so much with the video locally that you already start on the back foot. I.E Resizing 1080p to 720p then uploading.

Fourstar · 25 Jan 2014 at 08:28

Antony101 said:
Anyway I can stop YouTube from playing a video in a lower quality than I ask it too while it buffers?

I use this greasemonkey script.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/49366

Malevolence · 25 Jan 2014 at 15:19

Antony101 said:
Anyway I can stop YouTube from playing a video in a lower quality than I ask it too while it buffers?

Tried to watch the above video in 1080p but it had finished before YouTube had even switched it to 1080p.

You could try this extension for Chrome, Firefox/Waterfox or Safari. I've been using for sometime now, since somebody else on these boards recommended it to me, and it's top notch.

http://www.chromeactions.com/

Among other things, such as the awesome cinema effect, it makes Youtube automatically play videos in whatever resolution you choose in the settings.