Youtube Widescreen resolution - How to / Quick Reference Guide

[OfficialyRicky]

I upload videos and put pictures in with lyrics as frames.. what res should i make the pictures? what ever res i make them, the youtube box gives a big black border around it and the picture gets shrunk?

[GuruMN]

@OfficialyRicky If your video editing software can make a normal Youtube video without squishing the picture then I'd be sure the picture is the same resolution as the video. If you can make the video 1920x1080 that will be the highest resolution Youtube supports and anyone with a high resolution monitor could see the pictures with great clarity unless something else is wrong such as your video editing software not supporting 16:9.

[OfficialyRicky]

@GuruMN alright thanks, got it working now

[4131025]

great

[qusaisaher]

mean (utube screen) the small screen not the full one

[qusaisaher]

hi and thanx for the video but i dont know if its still alive ,

my question : how i should get a video with lower size as can and be in good quality in the same time , so when be opened fill the utube screen and load faster and the video should be clear ?? is there specific type for video (iam using mp4)

[GuruMN]

@qusaisaher Yeah, this video is old now . Are you looking for a smaller file size when you are uploading? Depending on the type of MP4 you are using you should be able to reduce the bitrate a bit. For 720p, 5mbps would allow for near-perfect quality but a huge file. 2mbps should be fine for most things, 3 if you need reasonable quality. There should be a quality or bitrate setting for your video application. Play around with the settings.

[qusaisaher]

@GuruMN yeah its alive . thanx for the replay , i want upload less than 20 mb for 5 minutes with 640*480 , 329bitrate its very good but the video didnt fit in the utube screen(normal screen) so what the resoultion should be converted to :higher than 640/480? thanx again

[GuruMN]

@qusaisaher Oh, that's not a bitrate issue. The size you want for widescreen would be 640x360 or 1280x720

[KingGogeta19]

what resolution do i use 1920x1080 is too small on my video :[

[Harelgur]

My screen's max res is 1600X1200

when i record gameplay and upload them it would be wide?

can i make it wide?

[JAnDIJOLLY]

THANK YOU!

[SteveEdwardsMusic]

Thanks for that - EXTREMELY useful !!

[LadyJuanne]

Thanks!

[quickshow09]

Thank you so much for this usefull information!!!!!!!

I always try so much uploads and they always change things. Its very annoying.

Pls keep updating this Info!

[MegaDSL1814]

A 1280x1024 resolution will be downsized to 1280x720, right?.

Do I get widescreen if my camera has 1280x1024 resolution?

[GuruMN]

1280x1024 is a square resolution if you want it to be 16:9 you can add this to your tag section.

yt:crop=16:9

Either that or when editing it, you would need to crop it to 1280x720. Keep in mind that when you do this you don't get the full height of the video, it chops some off the top and bottom(or depending on your editing software you get to choose which area it pulls from such as top, middle, or bottom)

Hope this helps

[JKAYnl]

and how do i get the HQ icon?

with 640 x 360 ? please hlp

[GuruMN]

The best to use is AVC which is an MPEG4(MP4) format. As far as bitrate, from testing HD 1280x720 at 30fps I would upload with 5000kbps. For 640x360 with AVC I would say that 1,000 kbps would be fine, if not slightly overkill.

In the end HD footage turns into around 2000kbps when Youtube processes it. HQ usually comes in at around 700-800 although HQ and standard quality have been having changes lately.

HQ should come up when using WMV and MPEG2(MPG) too, not sure about bitrate for those.

[Keirnoth]

I've been using X264 to upload my 1280 x 720 HD videos. Does AVC really compress that much better?

I have no problem with using an average bitrate of 5000 kbps, but these videos get fricken huge. Is there any way to reduce the size without sacrificing quality? They take too long to upload.

[GuruMN]

x264 is the free library that encodes in the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format. So it's really not much different than any other MP4 AVC encoding method, it's too similar to call it any different in my opinion.

I've been using 5000 kbps as well. When Youtube gets it, it gets toned down to 2000 kbps. You could try to encode it to 2000kbps but I see that once it gets reencoded by YT it loses some quality, just enough to notice if I'm paying attention or there is alot of movement or detail involved.

[GuruMN]

If it bugs you with its size you can drop it to 2000 mbps and work your way up to find a happy medium if you want to play with it. Remember there are about 4 times the pixels in HD than there are in HQ so there is no way around having a bigger file. At 2000kbps 10 minutes is about 175, so 4000kbps would be a little less than double(considering your audio stream stays the same size)

[BenjaminEllett]

it automatically will let you do HQ

[JKAYnl]

what do you save it as ? WMV? MPG?

and what obout the bitrate (kbps) ?

( i export with premiere pro cs 3 )

thanks

[BenderCP]

Thanks, 640x360 gave me a good quality and a decent file size.

Helped me alot :D thanks.

[jamieandrei]

Tx for the comment and help aways back. i will try it out. the non square to square pixel thing confused me a bit. will just give it a crack. Tx bro.

[PikolUploader]

what, youtube can have now 1920x1080 ? o_O

[GuruMN]

No, any size larger than 1280x720 is downsized to 1280x720.

[zerocloud41]

hey i uploaded some videos of portal, they are on my page if you want to see the problem, using fraps fullscreen and the game was at max resolution but i still get bars...is it because i used wmm to make the videos HD 720?

[GuruMN]

It looks like the source video that you are actually uploading to Youtube probably has those bars because usually they would show up completely black but in this case that are grey. I'm leaning towards an issue with WMM, either that or fraps didn't capture in true 16:9.

[zerocloud41]

thanks and yea its prob wmm since fraps does record 16:9 and 16:10 (not 100% on the last one), still though its weird because most ppl use wmm to edit

[Savagehippie302]

This is incredibly helpful. I've been trying to upload videos in the best possible quality given what I have to work with (Canon FS100), and this information will be extremely helpful to know in the conversion process. Thanks!

[killerboduk]

click my name and find youtube wide screen 100% wide its a 100% wide

[VoiceOfApollo]

Thanks man, trying to figure out this widescreen business is ridiculous. Square pixels - who knew. I tried 720 x 400 but it just converted it to 4:3. Ridiculous... so I'll try 640 x 360.

[walls777]

Thanks guy this helps allot =)

[DJCarboni]

Hey man, I uploaded a video as you described 640x360 with 30fps but even though my video is in widescreen it seems to freeze for like a second then continue. It does that throughout the whole video. Help me please.

[imfunftenzuhaus]

is it really 30p ? my 25i videos convert fine when uploaded to youtube, so i thing it can be 25p too

[GuruMN]

Yes, it can do 25 frames per second just fine, the limit is 30fps.

[jamieandrei]

square or non square pixels? does it ARC the video image?

[GuruMN]

Square pixels. Pixel aspect ratio should be 1.0 as computer screens have square pixels. Some camcorders produce 16:9 with a non-mathematical 16:9 by pixel count but they stretch it out using a wider pixel aspect.

When encoding for Youtube or for anything else where the destination is a computer, always use square pixels.

[GuruMN]

ARC the video image? Is that an video related acronym. I know way too many acronyms that use those three letters, I'm not going to rack my brain trying to figure that one out. Let me know what you are asking.

[jamieandrei]

ARC = aspect ratio conversion. I come from a broadcast TV back ground, just trying to mesh with the online space. Where we create in square pixels for non square pixel syndication. Very intersting scenario. Thanks for the reminder in regards to the use square. Tx.

[GuruMN]

Well, if you have 16:9 source video and you are producing 16:9 in the end you will be fine. Doing anything else will either require cropping to produce 16:9 or stretching. Too many people are settling to stretching their videos. For those who don't want to or can't crop their videos, I'd rather see pillar bars.

Glad I could help.

[TheREALSisko]

cheers

[RX7jkr]

Piece of crap is not working for me.

[GuruMN]

It looks like your latest video is in widescreen, unless there is something else wrong with it, is there?

[RX7jkr]

Well none of those video sizes worked for me, mine had to be 856x480 in order to be displayed on widescreen. I tried it with the video sizes provided in this video such as 640x360 and 1280x720 but neither of those worked.

[GuruMN]

Is it your Nero video editing software that won't let you choose the size? What is the source resolution as it comes to your computer from the a/v decoder between your computer and the PS3?

I'm also noticing some compression artifacts, you might be compressing it too much or using a codec that doesn't compress well.

[RX7jkr]

Yeah, in the first couple of tests I was using Nero Vision to render the videos. Although it did let me choose the video size/resolution, whenever I uploaded the video with the resolution of say, 640x360 or 1280x720 and the aspect ratio of 16:9, it would still have the black bars on the side when it was uploaded to Youtube.

I asked somebody to recommend me a good program to render videos and Windows Movie Maker seemed like the best choice: it renders the video at 856x480 automatically.

[RyanMeray]

I wish I would've found this before I took the time to printscreen the Youtube page and then find out the video size by drawing a marquee around it. But it's nice to know for future reference!

[GuruMN]

That's exactly how I found out the size, It seems they finally published the resolution on Youtubes page. They haven't documented that 1280x720 works now though.

[DanniMTV]

thanks! i'll try again ^_^

[GuruMN]

When you have finished rendering it and you watch it, is the window square, what is its final resolution. It seems like the video you are uploading is probably a square video that was letterboxed. You would need to have the video project in your editor be setup for 16:9 from both the start and from when you are in the rendering stage. Use 640x360, or 1280x720 if your source resolution is higher.

[bigdan1985]

Mate, thank you very much! I've been wondering what video resolution to encode my YT videos in! Every other site has been utterly crap in this regard...

[ferriswheelRob]

Yes I have found theres no websites on this subject either,

Thanks so much for the help

[TheBeeOBee]

oh wow, awesome vid. just a reminder, how do you get stereo sound? thanks.

[GuruMN]

If you upload the video in stereo sound and the quality is high enough(640x360 or higher resolution, although if you are sending it up in 4:3 it needs to be 480x360) with the video in the right format, such as AVI, H.264, MPEG2, or MPEG4(probably a few more), it should be coming in as stereo. Usually if you have videos with the high quality option the video will play in stereo when being viewed in high quality.

[beatbtyler]

Excellent! Thanks a lot!

-btyler

[PDXvlog]

Favorited for future reference, woo!

-JP

[MandeepGadgetBoy]

Thanks; you explained it well!

[SurvivalHorrorGamers]

Thank you!

[themightythor1212]

traditionally the flash player only played about 15 fps, i rendered a video this morning at 1280x720 60fps, will upload later to see how it fairs, but it appears you tube if downsizing the video that you upload and stretching it in the player, i saw yuour example and it looked pretty good but it also appeared to have stretch evidence in it? thanks for talking to me about this, i really want to figure this out

[GuruMN]

Have you been able to determine definitively that the videos have come in as 60fps? By the way use square pixels in both your initial project setup and in the render as window, don't use the 1.333 that you've been using and suggesting in your videos. Computers and Youtube use square pixels unlike some camcorders and film equipment that don't.

[themightythor1212]

the encoder that Youtube is using is more than likely Flix, which will convert everything to progressive, so i usually dont worry about that. my camera is outputting 1.333, so i used that setting to match the camera output, but yeah i know computers only have progressive streams, it just appears 1.333 is much much clearer when uploaded as such? also the 60 fps has better definition as far as depth is concerned

[GuruMN]

I'd usually think that rendering to match the square pixel format that Youtube uses would be the best idea otherwise Youtube will just do that conversion for you once it is uploaded and in processing. ...unless Youtube is doing a better job than Sony Vegas, in the past that wasn't the case.

[themightythor1212]

isnt true HD 60 frames a second? i kinda rememebr reading that some were?

[themightythor1212]

thanks ALOT!

[TheBlackWalIStreetUk]

ty very much

[achampag]

THANK YOU =)