Compress Your Luck

December 17, 2007 4:36 PM

Preparing videos for youtube: what are the most efficient video/audio compressions to use when trying to keep a video under 100 MBs with sacrificing as little quality as possible?

I'm using Adobe Premiere. And I never understand how I can make a 10-min mp3 that is under 20 MBs, but that same audio sounds like rubbish on a video and takes up over 80 MBs. etc.

posted by Mach3avelli to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

one of the h.264 options (x264, Nero AVC, Quicktime h.264, etc.).
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 5:00 PM on December 17, 2007

H264 video with AAC audio. Alternatively, higher bitrate MPEG4 (higher rate than equivalent H264) with AAC or MP3 audio.

Note that despite the poor output quality from the YouTube site, they do supposedly store the original full quality version you upload, so this might have an effect on how good you want the video to be, at least.
posted by wackybrit at 5:11 PM on December 17, 2007

YouTube’s a moving target, so these may not be the most up-to-date pieces around, but they’re still useful articles. However you do it, tweak your settings so you’re using all of the 100MBs they’ll let you have...

Possibly worth checking out.
posted by dpcoffin at 6:54 PM on December 17, 2007

Best answer: I've been going by this advice:

ignore the recommended youtube settings, and the biggest file is not always the best file...here is what you need to do for youtube...

if you want to export to youtube, you should export in FLV format out of adobe media encoder. and use these dimensions 425x318 (trust me, i've spent months and months researching the best youtube quality, and this is what they export in for the crystal-clear videos on youtube when they make those political ones that are always so clear)

when you go direct to FLV in that exact size, then youtube doesnt have to respample, just compresses the data rate.

also, use 192kbps or 128kbps mp3 audio quality

And I seem to get ok results. I haven't done any comparative testing personally though.
posted by xorry at 5:54 AM on December 18, 2007 [2 favorites]