YouTube: Best Video Encoding?

Hey all, kind of a technical question you all you YouTubers out there.

I'm having issues with visual quality regarding YouTube uploads. It seems like regardless of how I encode something in H.264, YouTube's encoding on top of it kinda destroys the video. I've been trying to wrap my head around the issue and I've been trying to configure my encoder properly to start making sense of things but I haven't been able to get the quality where I need it.

Iv'e been using DxTory to capture video and using VirtualDub to encode it (too cheap to buy a video editor.) Settings are linked below:

For DxTory, I'm currently using Lagrith.

http://i.imgur.com/TV8u4Na.png

I double pass in X264 after capture from within VirtualDub with the below settings:

http://i.imgur.com/JUjHqI1.png

While the finished product looks great, the YouTube upload...well...doesn't.

Click for Test Video

The distortion seems a bit extreme when moving and just the fuzziness of the video looks terrible.

Any sugesstions?

I use NVIDIA ShadowPlay to capture video and Handbrake for encoding, but yeah, YouTube's encoding of encoded video files is gross (example). I'm interested in what others are doing, too.

I personally use Fraps to capture video and Handbrake for encoding. I agree that Youtube's encoding sucks but my videos haven't turned out too bad using this method.

Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr312Yu0uZY

I am digging handbrake more than VirtualDub for sure. Thanks for suggesting that.

Uploading a test video now again.

Doesn't matter which settings you use, youtube will always decrease the bitrate by a huge amount.

The (sad) solution i found while trying to improve the quality on youtube videos:

- bitrate at 15Mbits~
- upscale to 2048x1152

Youtube will downscale the video, again, but the results are much better than uploading a 1080p video.

Best results i've got:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYXC6iDSl5Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL7Z6AGWj_g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jstjw6iO9UY

For reference

https://frapsforum.com/threads/not-h...d-quality.2223


I tried Premiere Elements 11 with h.264, VirtualDubx264 and Handbrake

All give about the same quality - and since i can upscale in Elements 11 without having a huge videofile i prefer to use that one.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Risae

-snip-

---

Do you always play with your UI hidden? o.o

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Eekiki

Do you always play with your UI hidden? o.o

---

I only hid it because it looked better for the video

what type of output file do you end up with to upload? is it still a .avi or does virtual dub output it in another format?