How To Make YouTube High Quality Video

Hey Guys,

Haven’t posted anything new lately, been busy with my internet marketing…

This site is only a hobby. A sideline! My REAL job is actually selling ’stuff’ online as an affiliate marketer.

In fact I’ve been working on some new guides that shows people exactly what I do to make money online! Cool eh? I show the exact step by step methods I use.

In fact, the system is called the ‘Cash Bootstrap Method’ and you can see my entire story here: http://www.cashbootstrapmethod.com/

Anyway, I’ve created a video for my ‘Cash Presell Guide’ that shows you step-by-step how to write to sell and to make money rather than lose money!

BUT when I posted the video I noticed that YouTube had changed the playback size! Anyway, I still used my code generator (that you can find below) and it worked! It still plays perfectly in the 480×360 window size that you can embed into blogs.

Check out my NEW video on the ‘NEW’ YouTube Video Resolution below:

(press the ‘PLAY’ button in the middle)

You can visit the site here: http://www.cashpresellmethod.com/

Anyway, if you’re having trouble embedding, make sure your code looks like this: “http://www.youtube.com/v/*VIDEOCODE*&ap=%2526fmt%3D18&rel=0″

*VIDEOCODE* is the code of your video, look futher down how you can generate your code and find YOUR videocode. You will have to make sure it’s the same in 2 places of the code.

I will do some further testing and might changing the code gerator depending on the results to go along with the ‘NEW’ YouTube settings.

Anyway, it’s 3:30am and I’m off to bed. Until next time…
Mark

After much testing (and failing) I’ve found an application that will convert and re-size your videos to the new H264 video format - for FREE

Wow, another cool thing for you guys!

I would like to show you a video I took with my 3 year old Canon Digital Camera (Ixus 55 - PowerShot SD450), it was recorded at 640×480 resolution and the audio sample rate is only 11025HZ (Very low).

So the video quality isn’t that great to start with, it is hardly High Definition!

It is also recorded in an AVI movie format (very large at a little under 200MB! for a UNDER 2 minutes)!

Using the conversion software the file size came out at around 14MB, but I also reduced the picture to 480×360, as this is my personal favorite resoltuion for YouTube. So pretty good compression.

Oh, the quality isn’t ‘Great’ as you must remember it was captured with my digital camera, and the final H264 video looks much better on my computer as YouTube then re-encodes it again! But please take a look anyway.

Take a look at the video here (Butt Ugly Martians From Holiday in UK - 2006):

Now take a look at how I transformed the video from a largely uncompressed AVI (188MB) to X264 (Open source free version of the H264 codec, but essentially the same) that resulted in a file size of a little under 14MB!

You can get this fantastic encoder/transcoder from here:

Winnydows.com

Please, if you like the software, please give the guy a donation of a few bucks, it’s well worth the money considering some of the $30 & $40 software I tested didn’t work!

That’s it for now, I hope you enjoyed this installment!

- GENERATE YOUR HIGH QUALITY VIDEO EMBED CODE HERE -

There are a lot of sites out there that show you methods what you should do to embed your high quality youtube video.

But they can be a little confusing.

So what I’ve done is managed to create a online script that actually generates the code for you. Not only that it give you different options to choose from. Once generated, all you have to do it copy the code and put it in your webpage or blog. Cool eh?

HERE ARE THE OPTIONS:

1: Generates HQ YouTube Video Embed Code. Normal Dimensions - 425×344. Shows ‘Related Videos at the end of playback.

CLICK HERE

2: Generates HQ YouTube Video Embed Code. Normal Dimensions - 425×344. Does NOT show ‘Related Videos at the end of playback.

CLICK HERE

3: Generates HQ YouTube Video Embed Code. Dimesions (480×385). Shows ‘Related Videos’ at the end of playback.

CLICK HERE

4: Generates HQ YouTube Video Embed Code. Dimensions (480×385). DOES NOT show Related Videos at the end of playback. (Recommended)

CLICK HERE

Hi,

Today I am going to show you ‘via video’ how to create a High Quality Youtube video using Camtasia Studio V5.1.

Camatasia Studio is pretty cool as you can import other media including audio. It also had the ability to encode in the new H.264 format (Get a free 30-day trial here: Camtasia).

What is H.264?

H.264 is the next-generation video compression technology in the MPEG-4 standard, also known as MPEG-4 Part 10. H.264 can match the best possible MPEG-2 quality at up to half the data rate. H.264 also delivers excellent video quality across the entire bandwidth spectrum — from 3G to HD and everything in between (from 40 Kbps to upwards of 10 Mbps).

The above extract is taken from Apple’s website, see the FULL EXPLANATION HERE

What this all basically means is that H.264 can encode high quality video at a very small footprint (file size), without losing hardly any quality.

That sounds great, but what do I need to do?

There are a few things that you need to bear in mind when you are creating or encoding your video:

1: Youtube doesn’t support widescreen, so if you make your video widescreen (16:9) you will have blank spaces above and below your video, so if you can; make your video 4:3 (usual 4:3 resolutions are 320×240, 400×300, 480×360, 640×480, 800×600 etc) The ratio is 1.333 - Recurring.

So to find out if your video is a ‘perfect’ 1.333 ratio, or to make a perfect ratio that can be re-scaled without losing too much quality, take the HEIGHT and mutiple by 1.333. This will give you your width. Try it.

Take for example (480×360), the height is 360 x 1.333 = 479.88 - Always round off to the nearest number so it is 480. Got it?

2: Size vs Quality: I generally find that 480×360 is good enough for high quality, this is the minimum size your video dimensions need to be in order for YouTube to class it as high quality (high definition).

I also sometimes use 640×480. I don’t see why you would need to go any larger. Let me explain…

The higher you capture the larger the file size etc on your part. But…

The youtube video player doesn’t play at very high resolutions, so if you are playing a high res video that was recorded and uploaded at 800×600 the youtube player has to ‘down size’ the video to play in their player (understand). This reduced the playback quality. So there is no point.

I’ve actually found that using the H.264 codec; high quality video recorded at 480×360 is actually played back at the full 480×360, so no ‘resizing’ has to happen, resulting in a near perfect playback.

3: Your framerate is important: When encoding your video you MUST select 30FPS, otherwise youtube will not recognise your video as high quality. Believe me, I tried and failed loads of time before I doscovered this. You should also leave the audio at 44.1KHz (doesn’t matter if it is mono).

Even with these settings, you will be surprise at how small the file size is and how good the quality is!

Ok, take a look at the video below at how I make my High Quality YouTube videos using Camtasia Studio V5.1…

By default YouTube isn’t set to ALWAYS play the high quality version of a video if available.

This is what the default setting is:

“Choose my video quality dynamically based on the current connection speed.”

This is great if you have a super fast connetion, as it will play the high quality version always. However, there are other factors that may interpret your speed to YouTube even if you DO have a fast internet connection.

There is things like latency, your location, if you are overseas you may take longer to connect, your ISP performance (Internet Service Provider) etc. YouTube makes an instant decision to whether or not the High Quality version is shown, and if you don’t have an ‘almost immediate’ connection they will play the standard resolution video to you.

BUT…

There is a way around this.

You can easily configure your account to ALWAYS show YouTube High Quality Video.

This is what you do:

1. Log in, click on the “Account” link or the “Account -> More”

2. Scroll down to near the bottom, you will see: “Account”, Click “Video Playback Quality”

3. Select “I have a fast connection. Always play higher-quality video when it’s available.” and Click “Save Settings”

That’s it.

Now whenever you view a High Quality Youtube video it will automatically play the High Definition version.

Please DO NOT make this change if you are on dial-up, but I’m sure if you are not watching youtube videos on dial up!

If optimised properly, the videos are not too much larger than standard resolution videos and most people will not have a problem with the higher video quality setting at all and it does make a huge difference in the video quality if recorded in high definition.

Next I will show you how to create a High Quality video for YouTube using Camtasia Studio v5.1 and the H.264 codec!

I have started this blog because I was trying to figure out how to get my videos to play in high quality on YouTube.

Now I did a search on youtube and in google, and a lot of the information was outdated or just plain difficult!

I did however manage to find out some information and have started ‘piecing’ it together. Finally after hours and hours of encoding and re-encoding I finally managed to figure out how to get my videos in High Definition on youtube.

In this blog I am going to show you how to:

• Set your YouTube account so that it always plays the High Quality (HQ) version of a video (if available)
• The correct settings and codecs available (NOW) to get YouTube to show your video in high quality (high definition)
• A free tool to get the code to play the High Quality version of your video within your web site or blog
• How to embed yours (or others) high quality videos into your webpage or blog

So, stay tuned and if you have any information that will help then I would love to hear from you.