Guide: HD 720P Video's on YouTube

So I read the news about youtube going widescreen & HD and had to give it a shot.

I just got off work and made a super fast video of fallout 3 to see if it works.

The Verdict?

It does! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXkHq8AYQ4&fmt=22

Edit: a few more shot clips I made
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYYxSsKnuZ0&fmt=22
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbv109HCIK4&fmt=22

Ultra short clip just for testing, bad angle but its a guy getting his head blow off with a dinner plate

So how to do this?

First recording was done with FRAPS. ( http://www.fraps.com/)

I just did the full resolution in my case 1920x1080 and set it for 30fps since I know YouTube scales down to 30fps and also because the files from FRAPS at this size are HUGE.

For Fallout 3 I found F4 works great as the video start/stop key.

Get your videos together via FRAPS or if you already have stuff you want to use.

Next. I had to recode the video from the massive file size that FRAPS gives you to something more normal. Also the resolution needs to be changed (YouTube probably will do this on its own but I bet the quality will be worse and take longer)

I use Avidemux to do all my encoding and use the x264 codec its by far the best, however I just found the hard way that FRAPS uses its own special codec that is not compatible with Avidemux. So I will have a separate guide on Avidemux at a later time incase you have other video sources you want to use that do work (or if other capture programs work with it, I need to try Xfire's capture)

For now download & use AutoGK ( http://www.autogk.me.uk/)

Its free and works so great for about everything.

The program is super easy to use.

1.) Click on the input file selection tab and navigate to your movie file

2.) You can change the output file now if you like, it will default to the same location with AGK as the end part of the file name.

3.) Select output size - Use Custom Size and put ether your target size there or just a large number. If the target size is larger than the codec needs for max quality then it will just end up being a smaller size file so you cant go wrong here with a larger size target for max quality purposes.

I left mine at 700mb the default for this 10 second long clip

4.) Go to advanced settings and select Fixed Width because we want to make this 720p my original file was 1080p. I know 1920x1080 scales down to 1280x720 so for the width I put 1280.

For the Codec use Xvid

For Audio Auto is ok.

5.) Select Add Job

6.) Select Start

7.) Wait! depending on how large your file is and your computer speed it could take awhile.

My original clip from FRAPS was 196MB and the file I got out of AutoGK was 6.37MB so its a very big difference.

I then uploaded this video like normal to YouTube.

You will notice with the default link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXkHq8AYQ4

Even if you click the "watch high quality" it does not look that great. The main secret to sharing your great 720P videos is adding the &fmt=22 tag to the end of the URL

So the new link would be the one I posted at the top. Now it looks very nice and you can actually read the text and see small details witch was previously impossible in youtube videos.

Now that I have the process laid out feel free to share your videos. I am about to dive back into Fallout 3 as we speak and pay put together a nice collage of clips for your enjoyment later.

 

Lol... so that's what it was! I've always thought there was something wrong with my browser lately, but it's just the new widescreen format

Anyhow, thanks for another great tutorial I'll definitely be using this for recording gaming videos in the future

 

Yeah I wonder what I will have to deal with on my EEE next time I use it, youtube was a tight fit as is, now with the wider player it may not fit on the screen.

I have plans for today

A long fallout 3 clip and then edit the sound track to have my favorite moive/game character sounds. I made a pardoy like that before and it was brilliant but I used a show from adult swim and they tagged me with a copyright so the video was taken down.

So this time its all my footage and my efforts will not be in vane.

 

Update: Looks like the &fmt=22 is no longer needed. I just noticed tonight that the "watch in high quality" link has been replaced with "watch in HD" for my videos.

 

do you have to wait a while for the 'watch in HD' version to be available?

i tried MP4 h.264+ACC 1280x720 upload to youtube.... after 10 minutes, upload+youtube's encoding was done, video appeared on my account.... but no 'watch in HD' link came up... '&fmt=22' doesnt work either...

 

Basically, higher the no. of ref frames you've got when encoding the video, longer it takes for youtube to decode it. 4 is a bit high, 1 or 2 frames is fine, if you want the "watch in HD" to be available quickly.

Basically, one can use any software, any container [mp4 is best and quick] (except flv, haven't tried mov) to encode to HD.

For HQ - it was 640x360, 23.976fps min, 600kbps min.

For HD, the res is double, need min of 1280x720, 23.976fps min., 600kbps min.

What I found was that longer the video, higher the bitrate it required to be considered as HD by youtube. A 5s video does well in HD even with a bitrate of 600-1000kbps, but a 10min video needed about 2Mbps min.

I prefer MeGUI or Vegas (Sony AVC) for encoding HD stuff. MeGUI has its X264 profiles of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD (Standalone) which are kinda good presets for uploading HD content, and is pretty quick as well. Sony AVC is good as well even with Single Pass, but is still a bit slower than X264, no queuing, and since it works with 2 reference frames as default, the video gets decoded quickly by Youtube.

&fmt=22 is a useless extension IMO, 'cause if the video will be decoded as HD by Youtube, you'll get the Watch in HD option in a couple of 5 mins. If the video is not decoded as HD, then the &fmt=22 doesn't work (for a normal video). Youtube kinda fixed the loophole that was with the &fmt=18 extension.

 

The problem I had with the Sony AVC was things were way too dark for some reason. No option to change it that I could see. A bad work around may to boost the brightness of the the source before encoding it.♠

 

Sony AVC was not dark for me at all.What did end up too dark was the Mainconcept AVC. By the way how do i send a PM?

 

You need to have X amount of post, not sure how many it should be in the forum rules thread section.

 

Can anyone view HD do you know Vicious? like laptops with lowered-end video cards? or small res such as 1280x800 =/

 

Video card has little to do with it, its mostly cpu.

On a small screen if you have it 1:1 it will overflow off the screen, however most media players are smart enough to scale it down to fit the screen. Also youtube is only 720P so thats like 1280x720 so it will just perfectly fit on your 1280x800 screen with some vertical pixels to spare.

 

oh ic okay thats cool then, whats the minimum cpu do you need?

 

Any dual core CPU will suffice, even those ultra low voltage ones at like 1.2GHz.

 

The little low power 1.6Ghz single core Atom in my EEE can play 720P without issues in XP. Its on the border though. It will skip in Vista and 1080P is just a dream even in XP.

 

wow i see okay thanks for heads up is there. I want to understand something also might be little off topic or unless its already being discuss please link me but like you said viewing HD has to do with CPU so all our laptop screen can view 720P and 1080P? Then what is up with those LCD HDTV that says it offers 720P or 1080P?

 

Does it play 720p off youtube perfectly or on local (non-flash) videos?

 

Those televisions can display a resolution of at least 1280x720(720p) or 1920x1080(1080p). They decode the streams from TV station in real-time with their inbuilt whatever. Computer just decodes that with the CPU; while some GPUs can be used to decode, support is limited (files have to be encoded within certain specifications and the computer has to be set up for CAVLC/CABAC decode acceleration or DXVA).

 

Both, but it can not handle SWF very well at all.

 

oh okay thanks. +REP