YouTube video quality: why so dismal?

Factual Questions
1

I’ve uploaded a couple of videos to YouTube.

They look great on my computer, even at the YT-recommended 320x240 resolution, and even in fullscreen.

However, when they actually make it onto the site, they are a pixelated mess, even in the small, default original box. They’re almost barely recognizable on YouTube’s not-quite-fullscreen display. I’m compressing them with the XviD codec, as recommended by YouTube.

Somehow, though, the filesize remains the same, according to my bandwidth meter, but the picture quality decreases drastically.

Anyone know what’s going on here?

2

How big are the files you upload to YouTube? You can compare it to the size of the file that the end user gets to see by going to www.keepvid.com . Maybe YouTube is purposely degrading the video? I’m very interested in why this is too, although I never upload to YouTube.

3

This thread may end up in the pit because YouTube quality SUCKS! It is amazing! I haven’t seen a single video that is better than “barely recognizable.” Granted, I don’t watch a whole lot of them, but that has been my experience with YouTube and with Google Video. Very disappointing, especially when you want to see people’s faces. I hate internet video!

4

For bandwidth purposes, YouTube has a maximum file size limit, of 100MB and a time limit of 10 minutes for most users. The longer the video is, the more they have to compress it to make the file size limit, and the crappier it looks.

5

I put up a short kitty movie made with a digi camera as an AVI for a test, 23 seconds at 28,540 K and comparing it to just playing it on my computer, I would estimate that is has been cut in half as far as quality goes.

That much took a while to upload and maybe some folks cut their stuff pretty much before they upload because of the time needed to upload? YMMV

My old monitor is set at 1024 X 768

If you wanna look.

6

Youtube recompresses all video into the flv format and, at the same time, drastically reduces the bitrate so that a) It’s accessible to modem users and b) It saves them on bandwidth costs.

7

Try Revver, their vids play at a much higher quality.

Revver

8

The poor quality is probably what keeps youtube alive. If the quality were better, the rampant copyright abuse would be more of an issue.

9

Yep. Obviously YouTube is cool because it streams video to a high amount of users. It does this using Flash, since nearly everyone has Flash installed, where QuickTime, RealPlayer, and Media Player are more hit-and-miss.

To make it stream, you obviously need to lower the quality (and at the same time, filesize) so that people don’t need to wait forever for it to load.

Considering the wide array of codecs, sizes, and formats, I’m totally impressed with what YouTube does.

10

Yeah the quality sucks. But I look at YouTube as a stepping stone towards better video on the Internet, and I think it’s great that the networks are putting clips of their shows up too, that shows they’re working with technology instead of against it for once.

11

I’d like to know why some YouTube videos seem to load right up, while others, often just 1:00 minute or less in length, just take forever to load.

12

They use a really horrid codec - it’s possibly something to do with compressing at high speed/using the least resources for compression, given how many files they are processing and the demands on their processors and servers.

It’s nothing to do with the file size or bit rate per se. I work with online video and can make the most beautiful, clear, colourful .flv files with a much lower bitrate/filesize-per-minute than YouTube does.

And when it comes to working with a proper format such as H.264, the results bring tears to your eyes, compared to the dull sludge you get with YouTube.

But still, YouTube is free and convenient, so credit to them for that.