I can't believe it: YouTube finally did something right with a video quality improvement that wasn't marred like every single previous iteration, some of which I've dutifully logged. At least so far that I can see.
YouTube promises "true HD", and while I'm not an expert on the ins-and-outs of that, the quality — both sight & sound — are great. In a recent post where I was exploring whether to upgrade to Vimeo Plus, Vlad Bjornson left a fantastic, insightful comment:
YouTube's new HD option is actually very nice – even sharper than Vimeo's. I recently got a HD video camera and have uploaded a few tests to both Vimeo and YouTube. The vids on YouTube are nice and smooth with fewer compression artifacts. Here's a couple of comparison screenshots:
http://www.shiny-life.com/pics/YouTubeVimeoCompare1.png
http://www.shiny-life.com/pics/YouTubeVimeoCompare2.pngAnd links to the same video on both sites:
http://vimeo.com/2581767
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBfp1C4AHuQHard to think of YouTube as having high quality vids.
Not enough of a difference to make me abandon Vimeo, but it's a nice alternative option.
I concur. I've tried a couple tests and I'm surprised. SO surprised. I'm trying hard to be the Scully-headed skeptic and find something seriously defective, but aside from transient visual glitches when trying to seek in a YouTube HD vid, I can't. (I'll keep trying.)
The bigger point here: you can only upload 1 HD video to Vimeo a week on a free account, and even that must be within your weekly quota (500 MB/week). In addition, you can't embed HD videos unless you go Plus, and then, it's limited to 1,000 embedded HD views — a tiny number if you're serious about exposure — unless you pay for more.
On the other hand, YouTube presently allows you to embed HD videos for free, with some restrictions (keep reading). I wouldn't be surprised if this changed, but so far, their advertising-heavy business model hasn't moved around very much.
HD video, of course, tends to be a whopper to upload. "How to play romantic piano", post-render, is 630 MB. That's 27:11 minutes @ 3 MB/sec bitrate. I exported it as a WMV from Sony Vegas, because Vegas doesn't do correct H.264 exporting. I render to Photo-JPEG or Animation codec then let QuickTime Player handle the H.264 part, but that takes even longer… so for this outing, I went with WMV.
For official specs, see YouTube's "Learn More: Optimizing your video uploads". Do note: there're some mistakes in there, like how they incorrectly state HD is "1290 x 720". NO! It's "1280×720". Wish I could ping them about it, but my forum access is borked.
With larger sizes come larger processing times: the normal (aka "fuzzy crap") version will appear first, then sometime later (some've said this takes up to "half a day"), the HD version appears. I was concerned because I was waiting and waiting, and finally, some hours later, I breathed a sigh of relief because the "watch in HD" link appeared under the video's bottom right.
My wife uploaded a HD video of her own, a peaceful montage of Ken Burns'ed nature shots. Originally snapped on our Canon SD1100IS, the crispness really stands out when HQ quality is active.
I applied way back for a free Guru account, and that lets me upload videos longer than 10 min. However, this does not appear to be possible for newer users, according to this article updated on 2008-12-19:
You can no longer upload videos longer than ten minutes regardless of what type of account you have. Users who had previously been allowed to upload longer content still retain this ability, so you may occasionally see videos that are longer than ten minutes. You can, however, easily change your account type to Director, Comedian, Musician, or Guru, which offer a variety of other features like the ability to add a custom logo, tour date information, and links to other websites.
Vimeo, on the other hand, doesn't have length restrictions. And whereas YouTube (let's face it) is a treasure trove of copyright infringement, Vimeo is focused on original films (which may very well exceed 10 min.). To my knowledge, YouTube have never been transparent about why they cap video length.
Web video continues to be a fertile ground for tinkerers, and each site still has its strengths and weaknesses. YouTube has long been inconsistent and curiously broken in places: for instance, there's no direct tool to embed an HD (or high quality) video right on the page. You must affix some special characters or use a YouTube code generator. This gap makes no sense, and I'd like to hear YouTube's rationale, since they clearly allow it, but… it's just not easier.
Nevertheless, this is a good move forward. I'm eager to see what Vimeo, whose communities attract the more cultured and civil (as evidenced by the quality of their comments), does next to enrich their offerings. I'll continue to use both, and despite the disparity in HD, am thinking of trying Plus to see if 2-pass encoding makes a substantial difference for my video tutorials. (Which in itself is part of a showdown between Vimeo & blip.tv.)
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
maybe I need glasses but to me while viewing on my screen the vimeo version of the comparison video above looks better than the youtube version -_-
I'm guessing it is just a matter of time before they eliminate the need for a code generator script.
But after all, the HD feature is still very much beta, or like they say on the video info page: "Please note, we are currently experimenting with this feature and optimizing it accordingly, so we can't guarantee that your videos will always be transcoded into this format with this user option present".
I can understand that they don't want to make this the default setting yet. If "everyone" that uses YouTube start embedding HD at once, then that puts a lot of extra load on their servers.
At least the viewer is flexible enough to cater for both aspect ratio's and there is a workaround to get the high definition versions working in the embedded player.
Too bad that they now don't offer new exceptions to the 10 minute limit rule anymore. It should suffice for most user generated videos, but for tutorials/screencasts or recordings of events/sessions/presentations it isn't enough.
I think 2009 will be a big year for HD video – on the Web and off. More and more people are getting HD capable TVs and I think everyone is tired of the poor quality of most web based video. With mainstream sites like YouTube, Hulu, and Netflix jumping on the HD bandwagon it won't be long until HD is the new SD.
I know I'm hooked. I've been gorging myself on the great stuff on Vimeo for months now, drooling over all the sparkly HD nature vids. Now that I have my own HD vid cam I can finally join in on the fun.
Just in case anyone is interested, here are the settings I use when exporting HD videos from Vegas for use on Vimeo and YouTube. These are kind of based on Vimeo's suggestions for uploading, but they seem to work well for YouTube, too.
Codec: MainConcept AVC/ACC (.mp4)
Resolution: 1280×720
FrameRate: 29.970 (NTSC)
Field Order: None (Progressive)
Pixel Aspect: 1.0
Variable Bit Rate: Max 8,000,000 / Average 5,000,000
I sometimes use the Two Pass encoding when I'm not in a hurry. I also have the Number of Reference Frames set to 2, although I have no idea what that is.
Jamaipanese: I think they both look great, really. It's really just a matter of preference I think. To me the YouTube version is a bit 'softer' which is nice in this case. The real difference can only really be seen on framegrabs or areas with lots of motion
Vimeo doesn't have time limits, just size limits, and i think my encoding settings are are major fubar, because 640 x 480, vid = 480 megs? WTF? Anyway, vimeo appeals to a different crowd, because you can't upload TV shows, or anything you didn't make.
for some reason i don't seem to be able to get the HD version to play when I embed them. It shows the standard quality versions instead.
@Pierre: Totally agree with you about the downsides to the "10 minute" limit. A lot of legit content goes above 10 min.
@Vlad: I've been looking at HD-capable TVs myself, and I think there are people who simply aren't aware how *good* web quality video can be until they've experienced HD. Similar to peeps who listen to crappy MP3s then hear better-encoded ones.
Quick Q for you and Vegas: when you open one of those MP4s in QuickTime Player, does it show a white first frame or not seek properly? I've found exporting like that generates defective MP4s whose video track doesn't show up when inspected in QuickTime, which is why I've been doing the slower Vegas-to-Photo-JPEG, then QuickTime Player-to-MP4 (Apple's H.264).
@Chilko: How long is your vid that ends up being 480 megs?
@radar: Link to the original video on YouTube please?