Topic: Uploading mp3s to Youtube advice...

[Nail_Bombed]

Have been trying to upload a few of my friend's band demo tracks to Youtube.
I went through this site called tunestotube.com and although it was fairly efficacious in putting up the mp3's, it didn't convert them to the right audio bitrate I wanted - I wanted my mp3 vids to come up in 256k-320k (as that's how my mp3's were ripped), from TTTube only got 152k.
I am a newbie when it comes to video editing so I would very much like any advice anyone has to offer such as good programs to use, how to properly encode, and how to get the best quality out of Youtube.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Youtube always compresses the audio, as far as I can tell.
On top of that, if you upload a compressed audio track, it will just re-compress it (from what I've tested).  If you were to upload a vbr MP3, it will do... 'something' to it and it will sound like it was recompressed for some reason.

I have found that the best way to get audio out of Youtube is to use an uncompressed, lossless, 'heavy' format.  Yeah, a WAV.
If you're uploading mix tracks, then you can use a program like VirtualDub (free! yay!)) or use Windows Movie Maker (free with a Windows PC but on my computer it tends to crash a lot) to just put up one still image (it works like a powerpoiint) and attach the huge WAV file (16bit stereo audio or 32bit stereo audio).

Virtualdub doesn't let you see the audio sync track if you use 32bit stereo audio (which kinda sucks, but hey it's free).  Not sure about Windows Movie Maker.

The reason you want a lossess format is because, no matter what you do, Youtube is going to recompress that audio.  From my experience, uploading an MP3 seems to mess up the audio, as Youtube takes the audio from the MP3 and recompresses that to something else, generating oddities in the sound.

Giving them a clean file will still compress it but at least you'll have the highest quality that Youtube can do.

[Nail_Bombed]

Thanks for that Jorge. I have an mp3 converter that I'll have a play around with to get a decent .wav then try uploading that later. Much appreciated.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Whoa whoa why an MP3 converter to get a .WAV?
By doing that, you're just wasting space.
Turning a MP3 into a WAV keeps all of the MP3's tiny errors in compression, while at the same time increasing the size by a factor of 9.  There's no benefit, as all of those miniscule errors in compression do not get fixed in decompression.  And then Youtube is going to recompress that.  If you're gonna do that, you might as well just upload the video using that MP3, as you're going to get recompressed anyway.

It's like recording something off of the radio.  Yeah it may be a perfect high-quality recording but it's a perfect recording of something with only radio quality.  And then that's gonna get compressed too.

If you don't have a redbook cut of the song (i.e. NOT AN MP3), you're out of options.

Here is some information I know from experience:
-If you're using a still image (like just CD Cover art you made), your video will be very small in size (relatively speaking).  The process will also be easier, as you only have to worry about one frame, as opposed to millions of frames...
-I happen to use an AVI format, which is basically a 'container' format.  This means that an AVI file is basically "Ok you're gonna use this set of graphic frames for video, and this audio file as audio, in tandem".  I am familiar with other formats but this is the one that Hypercam and Virtualdub seem to like.  Plus the XVid encoder is free to download (again this is more useful if you have actual video, and not really necessary if you're just using one graphic).

-I open the AVI/Video file (it has no audio yet, or if it does, we're gonna replace it with the high-quality cut) in Virtualdub.  I go to "Audio" and choose "Audio from another file" (it usually defaults to "Source Audio" which is the audio of your recorded video if it has one).
**NOTE** - VirtualDub will let you open a still image, such as a PNG graphic, and it will count as a 1-frame video file.  Then you can go to "Video" and "Frame Rate" and choose the "Source Rate Adjustment" to "Change so video and audio durations match", and it'll just play the entire WAV file with one graphic as the still image.
You're done with that for now.

If you're using Live Video (and not just a single graphic):
-Click on "Video" again and go to "Compression".
-I happen to use Xvid MPEG-4 Codec as my choice for compressing video (again this is for screen-captured videos, or recorded videos, stuff with animation.  You have to set this up even if you're using a single graphic).  I use the following settings:
**Main Settings:
**Profile@Level: Highdef
**Encoding type: Single Pass
**Target Quantizer: 16.00
(you don't have to touch that quality slider unless you're not happy with the 16.00 quality quantizer number I picked.  It's 'ok' quality and should suffice for most videos)
**Quality Preset: General Purpose
Click OK.

-Save as AVI.  Your compression settings, your audio and video framerate sync, and any filters you may apply (there are too many to mention but you can play with them all if you go to 'Video' and click 'filters'.  You can use Null Transport to crop a video you recorded to remove a watermark, such as that pesky "UNREGISTERED HYPERCAM" on videogame playthroughs, or to add subtitles using a downloaded Subtitle plugin, etc.).

When you upload the AVI to Youtube, Youtube will examine the container format, and compress whatever it can compress.
If the video is too 'heavy', Youtube will recompress whatever it can.
If the audio is too heavy, Youtube will recompress whatever it can.
Even if the video or audio is not heavy, Youtube will still apply a standard compression in order to reduce the load on its servers.  It also has a tendency to normalize audio so that it's not too loud.  Be wary of that, and make sure you take into account that normalization.  Basically, no matter what you do, Youtube will recompress.

This is why, for best quality, you want a really high-quality audio, and almost no video size.  A single graphic will net a very small video size so Youtube will not be compressing your file much.  In terms of Audio, if you provide something really high-quality, then Youtube will apply its recompression and bring it down to about 128bit CBR standards (I don't actually know this for certain, but I think it uses AAC compression).

Here's one of the many music videos I've done.  Here are the tools I used:
-Hypercam 3 demo (it has a stupid 'Unregistered Hypercam' at the upper left, but Virtualdub's "Null Transport" will crop that out, bwahaha)
-VirtualDub
-You need the XVid free encoder plug-in
-My video happens to use the "Subtitler" plugin for Virtualdub.  You don't need it if you have a band logo.  You can use its "Logo" plugin (it comes with many like I said) to put your logo over the still image, if you want.
-A video capture file for Virtualdub to process (created by Hypercam), or a single graphic for it to read (created by any paint program)
-An audio file.  Virtualdub, unfortunately, will not display 32bit audio WAV waveforms (for syncing audio to video).  It will play them, but it won't show you its audio display so it'd be hard to map them to video, if you were doing voice dubbing or something.  It will easily take 16bit audio WAV waveforms and let you mess with the interleaving (the start location of the audio so that it's syncing with whatever is going on in the video if you're gonna do that).
-Space in your hard-drive.  Video takes up a lot of space if it's live.  If it's a still image, you need basically the same amount of space your WAV it taking, plus a few megabytes more.  So a 50MB 16-bit 44100 3-minute wavefile's equivalent AVI file will probably be around 60MB, since most of it will be just containing the audio, and a very light video file generated by one frame multiplied by the amount of time the video lasts.

Majestic Castle - Hyrule Castle - The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

I hope this information helps you.  It took me a while to get it so I'm happy to share it.

ADDENDUM:
-You can trick Youtube into easing up on the compression if your image/video is greater than 640x480.  By doing something like 720p (1280x720p), by using a larger graphic or a lareger resolution video, you trick Youtube into thinking "Oh snap this is HD Video!" and thus will enable the "HD" resolution feature, which will enable an alternate, less-compressed audio.  Most of my videos are only 640x480, so I only get resolution up to 480p (which does pretty OK in terms of audio), as seen above.

[Nail_Bombed]

Didn't realise that... I thought that the original digital info would be kept through if it was ripped to 320k high-quality mp3 then converted. As far as redbook/original CD's are concerned, it's not really an option as I ripped all my CD collection to make space. Unless I want to spend another 3-4 months going up and down in my loft to get the CD's and doing them all again in .wav.

Ah well, might as well keep using tunestotube.com in that case - apparently they have the option of merging the pic and the mp3 and uploading as HD vids to youtube. After having a listen now, I can't actually make out much discernible difference between my uploads and the 320k mp3s I ripped.

Thank you for straightening me out though - I have no experience in doing any of this so it's good to know what to do the next time.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

I think that with the experience Youtube has had, over time it has improved its compressions.
Hell, it may even be keeping the MP3 intact, these days... but they're very hush-hush about what it is they're doing prior to the finished upload.

[TheouAegis]

If all else fails, try NicoDouga. Sure the whole site is in Japanese, but I've downloaded songs off one of the sister sites taht lets you download all the audio off NicoDouga videos and I gotta say sometimes the sound is freaking incredible. Better than what I expected to get, I'll say.