• Home
• Reviews
• News
• Downloads
• CNET TV

About me

My posting summary

1 to 2 of 2

My comments

• As many have noticed by now, YouTube has been tweaking it's compression techniques lately to create both "standard" and "high quality" versions of file uploads. They now recommend uploading files in MP4 format using a larger video size. YouTube's changes have made lots of trouble for content producers. Proven tools and tutorials that were "standard operating procedure" have been rendered obsolete. There is evidence of this in blog posts all over the web.
  
  Over the last few days, I have been trying to find a suitable and simple workaround. I think I discovered one. Be warned -- this fix may be temporary if YouTube continues to "enhance" its compression techniques. But as of 04-AUG-2008, the process simple and works just fine for me.
  
  My commercial software has become virtually useless at the final stage of production just before upload. But I found a freeware tool called WinFF (http://www.winff.org) that works and makes the last stage fairly straightforward.
  
  As YouTube now suggests, you want to convert your high quality video to MP4. This is where WinFF shines. First, open your high quality video in WinFF and select 'Options' to adjust the conversion settings as follows:
  
  Convert to: MP4 > H.264 in MP4(4:3)
  Video Bitrate: 2000
  Frame Rate: 30
  Video Size: 640x480
  Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  Audio Bitrate: 64
  Sample Rate: 22050
  AC: 1
  2 Pass: selected
  Deinterlace: selected
  
  SIDE NOTE: If you create videos often, you may take the OPTIONAL step to make a "Preset" in WinFF. If you only occasionally create YouTube videos, there is no need. The XML params you would use for a "YouTube preset" are -r 30.00 -vcodec libx264 -s 640x480 -aspect 4:3 -b 2000k -acodec libfaac -ab 64k -ar 22050 -ac 1 -deinterlace -pass 2
  
  Now with these settings, convert the file. A 10 minute MP4 file may become larger than YouTube's 100 MB limit. Don't panic. There's an easy way around the limit. Just use the YouTube multifile upload tool at http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_multiupload and the file size cap is raised to 1 GB each.
  
  If you use WinFF with these settings, the MP4 file that is produced will look great in YouTube's "high quality" mode, and still very good in "standard" mode.
  
  Hope this helps,
  
  Bill M
  http://www.sunfitters.com In reply to: "High-quality YouTube videos coming soon"

  August 3, 2008

  0 replies

• Great article!
  It does feel a lot like the irrational exhuberance of the 90's. There is so much hype around Web 2.0, but no clear ROI. At a recent Shop.org Marketing Workshop, one of the speakers said, "You can't think of it terms of ROI."
  
  I wrote a recent blog post myself about the futile race for the "next new thing," and how entire industries can get caught up.
  
  Seems to me we all need to get back to basics, particularly in light of the economy, as your post points out. In reply to: "The Web 2.0 economy hangs in limbo"

  April 25, 2008

  1 reply