WVU #24 – YouTube Secrets – Crystal Clear Video In YouTube Revisted
In a prior episode, I showed you how to get crystal clear video in YouTube. Well, a few things have changed at YouTube since then and I’m sharing those changes in this episode. In this episode, I’m also going to share how to get crystal clear screen capture videos on YouTube…as well as how to embed videos from YouTube on your web site or blog…while maintaining the sharp clarity that I demonstrate.
Here are the code snippets I share in this video:
&fmt=18
&ap=%2526fmt%3D18
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Dave, why aren’t your videos coming from YouTube?
Excellent tip! Thanks for sharing this.
Dave
Applied this tip immediately and it worked like a charm.
Thanks
John
@TC – These videos are video podcasts, which means they are being distributed through iTunes, Zune, podcast directories, etc.
Long and short, podcast videos have specific technical requirements that YouTube doesn’t come close to meeting.
I occasionally produce video tips about getting better quality through YouTube because I frequently get asked about it.
Hello Dave, Top Quality Post, Thank You! I will be using that…
That was awesome. Makes a big difference.
Thanks Dave, you are *the* resource…
Question: why did you prefer ro record camtasia as .avi instead of .camrec for this?
Thanks again
David,
You’ll get much better quality recordings to .avi in Camtasia as opposed to .camrec. There is a very noticeable visual difference between the two. It has to do with video codecs. Plus, it gives you much greater flexibility as you can open an .avi recording in just about any software (as opposed to being tied to Camtasia).
hello dave,
thank you for that awesome tip. I am a WVU student and applied the tip immediately: it really increases the quality of the video dramatically: you can see the result on the ”willkommen”-page on my site. go have a look.
http://web.me.com/chrisbiz/Kreta09.
peter
Dave,
Really nice tip, thanks so much for sharing it with us. One question I do have with screen capture recordings in Camtasia, a lot of times my video file sizes end up really big – sometimes even too big to be put on Youtube.
How can I reduce the file size of larger recordings. I’d love to know this.
Thanks!
Re avi vs. camrec: great to know, thank you, Dave!
David H
@Will,
I sometimes get get file shrinkage by lowering the frame rate (depending on the video). Best thing, IMO, is to experiment with PREVIEW MANAGER where you can see impact on file size of tweaking different options.
@ David,
Thanks for that, but I was wondering if there is any program these guys use once they have exported the video to compress it and reduce it’s file size…?
This is such a fantastic technique, I use video on my site extensively and I will be using this from now on.
I had no idea that this could be done.
John O’Hara
United Kingdom
Dave,
I understand that “&fmt=18″ will allow your videos to be viewed in HD on youtube, but what about the viewers… Won’t that see your video in poor quality intially. If they don’t know about &fmt=18 then they won’t see your video in HD, right? Is this where you would use an annotation? I think I had trouble with that before, but is there a better way to display your video on youtube in HD as a default, so when viewers come to watch your youtube video, they’ll see your video in HD? I hope I asked that right. lol
J.Lamar – No…YouTube does not currently give you a way to “force” viewers to watch your videos in high-quality while on YouTube’s site. They leave this option up to the viewer.
Hey Dave,
Thanks for the heads-up on how to do this. I guess news travels fast, because I got an email today from a guy that built a free tool to do the conversion for you. Plus, it allows you to select from several additional options, like a menu or related videos.
He teaches a course on strictly screen-capture video, so I don’t really see him as your competition. Here is the link to his tool:
http://www.screencastprofits.com/youtube/
Share it with your subscribers if you like…
Russ
PS: I’m very much enjoying your Web Video University course! First “webformercial” forthcoming…
Dave,
Any program you use to compress your video sizes??
Understood Dave. Now I have noticed alot of youtubers having an arrow or annotation pointing towards the lower right corner of their video and it says “Watch in HD”. Do you know how they get that option? Here is an example: (and no I’m not promoting this movie. lol) http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&hl=en-GB&v=LyVGSGynYpg
It looks like Youtube has fixed the high-quality/low-quality problem in the embedding. Your /youtube/ page has two high-quality videos on it.
Thanks for all the useful information!
Hi Dave
Thx, I was wondering how to set the HQ as default on embedded videos.
Question- I see some videos on youtube have a “view in HD” option instead, and when clicked the entire video area enlarges as well. Is there a way to do this with Vegas Pro 8?
Hey Tim,
For those videos, they were shot in high-definition instead of standard definition and likely uploaded to YouTube at something like 1280×720 or higher.
So in Vegas, you’d need to render out your HD video at 1280×720 or higher for upload to YouTube.
As far as having the videos enlarge when the link in clicked, YouTube is doing that with their web site coding. They are simply embedding a smaller resolution video by default, then opening a page with the same video embedded at a larger resolution.
Hey Dave… What about the same info for Mac users who use Screenflow?
Rob,
It would still work the same way…you ideally want your recordings at 640×480. The only difference is ScreenFlow will produce a QuickTime (.mov) file to upload.
Hey Dave,
Do you know what dimensions I should upload to Vimeo in to give higher quality?
@ Russell – It’s best to follow Vimeo’s guidlines here:
http://vimeo.com/help/compression
Thanks, Dave. I really should have looked that up myself
Thanks for being such a great resource.
Dave, it seems like YouTube’s recent changes make the embed snippets you provided no longer work. In fact, adding the &fmt=18 to the url actually made my video appear in poorer quality now.
Unfortunately, it looks like YouTube is defaulting embeds to appear in 360p rather than 480p and it does not let you control this.
What I noticed Mark is when you put that code in it is actually the link to the 480p video. But I agree the 480p is no greater quality than the 360p but then again I been hearing that video sharing websites are not doing great these days. Google I thought stated they have yet to see a profit since acquiring YouTube.
hi dave,
great video but im finding it hard to follow these steps using microsoft movie maker. the layout and options are very different. if you already have a video (i cant find one) showing how to get good quality using movie maker please send me the link. if you dont could you please send me some ways or make another video, i understand you may not have the time for this.
Lots of good advice and video information here.