Noob editing question

[Henry Gentles]

What codec/resolution should I use to render my films for Youtube or Vimeo? Does anyone know what Andrew Reid or Philip Bloom et al render to?

[Sean Cunningham]

Render to some flavor of MP4 for upload.  

 

It's best to render your project to an uncompressed file and then use something like MPEG Streamclip, Compressor or Adobe's Media Encoder.  For best results, however, you shouldn't use the later two's presets (or follow advice on the internet suggesting 5-10Mbit for upload) as they're too close to the bitrate that these sites use to stream.  They're going to re-encode and re-compress, there's no getting around that.  Regardless of how good it looks on your desktop, cut that in half after you upload it.  You want to give them far more data than they'll actually be streaming, so their re-compression has room to work and your steam is somewhat "future proofed".

 

Uploading a version that's a much higher quality, higher bitrate file than what they actually stream means you get a better re-compress from them, which you cannot avoid.  Additionally, they retain this larger "master" file and as their capabilities increase, as new, higher quality standards emerge, your streams get upgraded.

[HurtinMinorKey]

For what it's worth, Premiere has a vimeo preset: It's H264, with a target and max bit-rate of 5Mbits per second. 

[Sean Cunningham]

Take that preset as a start but up it to at least 25Mbits.   Professionals upload 50-70 or even 100Mbit files (and they are officially encouraged to do so, no matter what their BS upload guidelines are for average users) and that's a big reason why when you look at an official trailer, music video, etc., even if you're looking at a 5Mbit stream, it will look lightyears better than any 5Mbit stream Joe Sixpack uploads (if they're using 5Mbit presets intended for and included for novices whom Adobe knows likely can't tell the difference and aren't creating content where it matters anyway).  

 

Here's a good read on the subject, and a quote right from a YouTube infrastructure insider:

 

 

It's important to think of the files you upload to YouTube as golden masters, as they will be used as source material to generate video streams for years to come. Simply put, the better the quality of the file you upload to YouTube today, the better quality the viewer's experience will be throughout your video's life on YouTube.

 

As displays increase in size, compression techniques become more efficient, playback devices become more sophisticated, and internet connections improve, so will the quality YouTube will be able to provide to the viewers of your videos. This means, while you may reach a limit on perceived benefits from higher bitrates or more efficient encoding if you were to test it today, that does not mean you should stop there. You will see a huge benefit over the lifetime of your video being available on YouTube, as internet speeds, hardware, and software evolve. Upload the best quality video that you can create and squeeze through your internet connection!

 

 

...the exact principle applies to VIMEO.

[Henry Gentles]

Thanks guys very helpful!!