Previous topicNext topic

youtube crunching the video

Questions, comments, feedback, etc.
Post Reply
AniRhythm
Posts: 22
Joined: Thu May 29, 2014 10:36 pm

youtube crunching the video

Post by AniRhythm »

I did an upload of a quick video I made with magic, direct upload and youtube apparently re-encodes it , and it came back looking really grungy and nowhere near what I got out of magic.. - are there any settings I'm missing to make the export more youtube friendly ? I know how to address this with other software, but it would be nice to have alternate render formats to be more compatible with youtube / social networks and other software right from the magics export.

Cheers :)
blackdot
Posts: 528
Joined: Sun Jul 06, 2014 10:18 pm

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by blackdot »

Yes i had the same problems with youtube. Apparently it always recomresses the video. I got better results by uploading stuff with very high bitrate. Those are very big files then though and take quite some time to upload.

Generally i have made better exoerience with vimeo. Feel there is much less decrease in quality there. This i my subjective exoerience though. No idea ir it's really true.
Terry Payman
Posts: 710
Joined: Sun Sep 14, 2014 8:15 am
Location: UK
Contact:

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by Terry Payman »

blackdot wrote:.. same problems with youtube. .. better results with very high bitrate... better experience with vimeo...subjective though
+1
Exactly my experience.
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by Magic »

are there any settings I'm missing to make the export more youtube friendly ?
When I do an .mp4 export specifically for YouTube, I do it at a really high bitrate (like 100Mbps). Even after recompressing, it looks reasonably good especially when using the HD mode in the YouTube player. But it takes longer to upload of course.

Vimeo always looks better though. It has higher bitrates. YouTube's maximum bitrate is 5Mbps for 720p and 8Mbps for 1080p. Vimeo's maximum is 10Mbps for 720p and 20Mbps for 1080p.

In general, the problem with animation from a program like Magic is that it's much harder to compress than natural camera footage or even 3D models. That's why, for example, Apple has an entirely separate codec called "Animation".
it would be nice to have alternate render formats to be more compatible with youtube / social networks and other software right from the magics export
There are a lot of interesting issues surrounding video codecs. One of the main issues is licensing, and sometimes it's hard to know who owns the rights for what codec, and so on. To avoid problems, Magic uses the built-in .mp4 encoders in Windows and OS X. I admit they aren't the best. If anyone knows of any codecs that have easy licensing, are YouTube-friendly, and have cross-platform support, please let me know and I'll be happy to investigate! :)

If you want the absolute highest quality though, Magic's .png export option does lossless compression. So you can then take the result into VirtualDub or some other encoding program, and do a highly-customized compression process. Obviously this takes more time, but it's the best solution for production-quality work.

Eric
AniRhythm
Posts: 22
Joined: Thu May 29, 2014 10:36 pm

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by AniRhythm »

can't say I know much of the topic other than what my ocd causes me to research in my 3D adventure lol

I don't know if these links will help, but I've seen apps built on them

the real player sdk
http://forms.real.com/rnforms/resources ... systemsdk/

this is codec pack that works well for me to fill in the blanks ( careful attention to how it does your file associations is important though, because while the codecs work well, the installer can rewire your system video and audio ..fixing somethings and fixing things that weren't broken lol - the codecs work well though ) http://www.codecguide.com/about_kl.htm

and this open source render engine -
http://www.ogre3d.org/

otherwise - I was able to fix this by loading the clip in sony movie studio - and youtube allowed the HD to happen in a much bigger file size 2x actually, in the magic output the little gear only showed 1 choice - low quality, in the Sony export, I was able to get several choices with HD included

this video-

again, I don't know much on this specific topic, just enough to upload to youtube, and what I need to know to render animation stuffs, but there may be some info in these links that, other developers have had success with and will give you open source ideas for alternatives - I hope it helps.

Cheers :)
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by Magic »

Ok, thanks very much! I'll investigate :).

Btw, your video looks ok to me if I select 720p mode. But I see what you mean, the standard-def version (360p) isn't as good.
AniRhythm
Posts: 22
Joined: Thu May 29, 2014 10:36 pm

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by AniRhythm »

I think i just figured out why the crunch - by default magic renders at 60 fps, and youtube was capped at 30 - so my sony bounce apparently just lowered the fps as a fix.

but apparently that has ..or is about to change according to this article -

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/29/7121 ... o-playback
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by Magic »

In the last couple days I've been doing some experiments with uploading to Vimeo and YouTube. My main question was, what happens if I upload a lossless video -- the best possible quality? Will it look any better than uploading an .mp4?

To test this, I exported a .png sequence from Magic, which I then imported into VirtualDub. I encoded an .avi using the HuffYUV codec. That's pretty much the highest quality you can get in a video file (except for completely uncompressed), but the file size is really big.

So, all I had to do was wait a long time while I uploaded big files to YouTube and Vimeo. Which I did. And, unfortunately, the result was that videos with lots of abstract colors and fast motion never looked very good.

Here's an example (not mine though). I subscribe to this guy's channel. Pretty cool stuff. He added this video recently:
You can see that it's pretty blocky unless you select an HD resolution, and in his description he even says to "select 1440HD for a decent preview quality". But on my computer 1440HD stutters too much for smooth playback.

So I think the bottom line is that if you want your videos to look good on YouTube and Vimeo, you can't make them too complicated. That's just the limitation of their bitrates.

I wish there were a site with higher bitrates, but I don't know too much about what's available. Anyone know?
AniRhythm
Posts: 22
Joined: Thu May 29, 2014 10:36 pm

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by AniRhythm »

thanks for this, can't say that I know much more beyond what I've posted so far, I do know that youtube is aiming for 4k - so I'm sure eventually they will have better options. The best result I've had so far is to render out the default 60 fps , import that into sony movie studio , and re-render - which gives me a chance to add credits anyways. an uncompressed avi option would be nice.

not a big fan of image rendering, only because my workload is pretty crazy ( i'm the hardest working unemployed person starting up their own business you ever met! lol ) - I take ez buttons whenever the chance arises, and save the extra detail work for special occasions.

Using magic, is an alternative to just putting a static image, or doing an all out animation render which takes a few days - it can definately do more in my 3D workflow, but for now it plays the role of being better than a static image on youtube to promote my new releases, while get a moment to do a new animation to make a more formal video.
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by Magic »

Yeah, I was just saying that my tests didn't demonstrate much of a difference between a high-quality .mp4 (at 100Mbits/sec) and an uncompressed .avi, when I uploaded them both to YouTube. The loss in quality comes mostly from YouTube's re-compression process, not from the source material.

Until video sharing sites increase their bitrates, non-naturalistic animation won't look as good.
wsobeats
Posts: 43
Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2014 2:01 am

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by wsobeats »

Hello Eric,

I have uploaded 37 videos to Youtube before I decided to investigate the difference in quality between Magic and Youtube. Yesterday I went over every post on the subject (twice so I could understand it). Posting to Youtube is my bread and butter for the online beat selling game. I was convinced my videos were better than all my competitors ( which they are probably --- until Youtube recompresses them.) I have looked at my own videos in HD now --- before yesterday I didn't even know the option existed. For the most part they look ok in HD. It's not alot going on with them. They are mainly colorful static images with some minor effects going on.

The problem is I can't expect my customers to know or even want to watch my videos in HD --- if I suggest it. There is so much competition in the music production industry that the kids follow the path of least resistance. I really need the videos on youtube to look as good as they do on Magic. If not I'm screwed. What are my current options? It seems as if Youtube sets the auto quality to 480p on the desktop and 360p on mobile. 80% of the traffic comes mobile these days --- so that's even worse.

This an example of my latest one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELpDcP5 ... video_user

I am currently working on uploading the finished Magic video to Final cut pro and then going to Youtube. There is an option to post directly to Youtube or to use Apple Devices 1080p and 4K. The latter two encode at H.264 and the output is a Apple mpeg 4. Any suggestions there?
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by Magic »

Unfortunately you don't have a lot of options. It doesn't matter how you post the video -- whatever format you use, and whatever method you use, you will get the same result. As I described earlier, I tried uploading a huge file that took hours and hours because it was so high-quality, but the result was the same. YouTube will always re-compress your video, and sometimes it will look bad at low resolutions.

The reason you get "crunchiness" is due 100% to the content in the video. Most natural camera footage only has very small changes from frame to frame. For example, if you have a video of a person walking across the road, the road background stays pretty much the same throughout the whole video. This is easy to compress, because when you compress a video for streaming, you are actually only saving the changes between frames, not the whole frames. This doesn't take as much bandwidth, but you get almost the same quality.

But when you are making a video in Magic -- let's say with the Waveform module, whose output changes very quickly -- then you have a LOT of changes between every frame. There is no guarantee that the current frame is anything like the previous frame. It's too much data for YouTube to keep up with.

If you go on YouTube and look for videos that have a lot of fast movement where the detail is changing rapidly, you will see the same problem. The video I posted above is a good example (watch it at 480 or 360). So really your only solution is to slow things down and make them look more natural, if you can.
wsobeats
Posts: 43
Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2014 2:01 am

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by wsobeats »

Ok. Ouch. Magic was my ticket to Youtube global dominance in the beat selling industry.

So just to make sure I understand this correctly. It's the 30 frames per second that's the problem. Magic changes i.e. animation happens faster, lets say 60 fps and when you don't have that kind of resolution you get a chopped up or glitchy effect and that's whats happening after Youtube compresses the video.

And Youtube has HD options but they are probably more for the gaming industry --- where the kids are probably much knowledgeable about watching the content they want to see in HD.

And my only options are handcuffing myself when I make a Magic Video ---- using less animation so there are less changes per frame. Cue the violins.

So, If I export the video at 30 fps will that give me an indication of how the video will look on Youtube? At least I could work backwards from there and pick effects that "glitchiness" sort of works for.
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by Magic »

The frames per second has nothing to do with it ;) . It's just the content itself. Instead of having lots of crazy things going on, experiment with a bit more subtlety.
artnik
Posts: 268
Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2016 5:33 pm

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by artnik »

wsobeats wrote:So just to make sure I understand this correctly. It's the 30 frames per second that's the problem.
Nope. It's the AMOUNT of the image that changes from frame to frame. So, as Eric said, if only a small amount of the image changes, like a small object moving over a static background, those changes are small. A simplified explanation is that video compression works in one of two ways, removing redundant data that doesn't change from frame to frame, or reducing the quality of the image if there's a lot of data changing frame to frame to fit all the changes into the limited bandwidth of transmission.

Imagery that doesn't change from frame to frame, or can be copied from a location on one frame to a different position in the next frame, is literally "redundant". i.e. It can be transmitted once, and then reused, because it would be redundant to send it again.

Here's an analogy. Imagine you have an email that is just the word "FRAME" repeated 100 times. You could send the whole letter (a lot of data) or send a compressed letter that says "Repeat "FRAME" 100 times.". Simplistically, that's what YouTube is doing with your video. If your email contained nothing but two pages of random letters, it would not compress well, because there is no redundancy.

A static, or mostly static, video would only need to send the full starting frame, and then just the small changes to each frame after that. A video with a new image on EVERY frame, would not compress well because there's no redundancy. In that case, YouTube would dramatically reduce the quality of each frame.

The worst possible scenario is when every pixel on the image changes every frame, which, with Magic, is quite likely the case.

Eric is suggesting you don't do visuals for YouTube that change the whole screen, every frame.
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by Magic »

Thanks yeah that's a helpful explanation. Also I want to say that I watched your video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELpDcP5 ... video_user) in 480p and I really don't think it looks THAT bad. Is it as good as HD? No. But it's definitely not the worst compression I've seen. I wouldn't worry too much about it :). It's possible that you are just being hard on yourself. And I think you might be underestimating the amount of people who explicitly set YouTube to HD, but of course I don't know for sure.
artnik
Posts: 268
Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2016 5:33 pm

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by artnik »

One more thing to add is that a lot of compression algorithms (including YouTube's) exhibit most compression artifacts on red imagery. There are some good reasons for this, but the primary reason is that there are few natural images that are predominately red, and human vision sees the most amount detail in the green part of the spectrum. In most cases, compressing the red channel of an image more than the blue and green isn't usually visible in natural scenes, but in graphics where red is the primary colour, it REALLY shows.

So, I agree that your video doesn't look bad overall at 480P, but the red logos do show the extra compression very much. Of course, being your logos, it's probably looking worse to you than to other viewers.

In the past I've actually changed the colour on elements to avoid red where I want there to be more detail.
wsobeats
Posts: 43
Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2014 2:01 am

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by wsobeats »

Hello Eric,

I still use your program for every video. Just wondering if the changes made in the updates -- make this issue any more manageable?
Magic
Site Admin
Posts: 3440
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2014 9:28 pm

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by Magic »

Well, I don’t really consider it to be an issue with Magic. You can try some of the new export options in v2.2 but the problem is on YouTube’s side. You’ll get the same results whether you make videos in Magic or any similar program.
dani72
Posts: 40
Joined: Sun May 13, 2018 12:42 pm

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by dani72 »

FWIW one thing I find useful to do is to upload the video as private initially and give it at least 4-5 hours or even overnight (depending on the size of the video) before making it public. Although YouTube may say that the video is fully processed it often takes a while more before it looks right. Unfortunately some of the more graphically intense videos will never look 100% right on YouTube no matter what you do. This is an example of a recent video I uploaded that still looks a bit rough:

Studio-dbfx
Posts: 37
Joined: Wed Nov 09, 2016 2:46 am

Re: youtube crunching the video

Post by Studio-dbfx »

I had issues with my Laptop playing back HD Youtube videos, fan spinning like mad!

after seeing an Amazon firestick TV stick in action. I boughtt a NowTV stick.
I played back some of the high quality videos through my NowTV stick, via the YouTube app, and the quality is crisp!

@Eric, even the Magic Music Visuals videos from 3years ago, look very sharp!

I would never go back to the laptop to watch Youtube videos! Only to update my account and admin stuff.
Post Reply