Youtube movie upload quality settings?

[mikeyS]

hi there. I have a movie I've made - animation and music - that is in pro-res422 HQ. I want to put it on youtube - my first on a youtube channel I've created. everybody on every website /forum suggests to go to settings to set upload quality - except I cant see those settings! I expect to see them, and understand them, its just that they do NOT seem to be a user option anymore?! I have looked and looked and cannot see any upload quality settings tabs anywhere as one would have seen for years previously. the upload has begun - in SD. extremely slowly as one would expect. I think I am wasting my time doing that as I need to specify BEFORE the upload commences? THANKS mike

[latreche34]

I'm not aware of such settings, To get a decent quality from youtube uploads your source has to be at least 1920x1080, to get VP9 quality your source has to be at least 2560x1440, Any codec your source has will be stripped and re-encoded no matter what, so if you have the bandwidth to upload lossless do so.

[vwestlife]

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

To get a decent quality from youtube uploads your source has to be at least 1920x1080, to get VP9 quality your source has to be at least 2560x1440

The vertical resolution is what matters. You can do 4:3 aspect ratio 1920x1440 video and get VP9 encoding and 60fps playback.

[latreche34]

We are not sure what aspect ratio he has, I'm assuming 16:9 hence my calculations of resolution.

[Master Tape]

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

I'm not aware of such settings, To get a decent quality from youtube uploads your source has to be at least 1920x1080, to get VP9 quality your source has to be at least 2560x1440, Any codec your source has will be stripped and re-encoded no matter what, so if you have the bandwidth to upload lossless do so.

You can actually get VP9 quality with a minimum resolution of 1152p.

So 1536×1152 for 4:3, and 2048×1152 for 16:9.

[abdula_of_arabia]

YouTube has two layers to it for uploads, all "quality" is decided by your encode settings and resolution bracket of media uploaded to it.

So you can upload to a bracket with the intent only to be used for that display resolution, this is fine when having 1080p and 480p/576p media with tight encodes to only serve proxys so horrible for lasting "quality" uploads as SD won't scale well on HD let alone UHD displays today.

Any 16:9 media just scale to 2160x3840 and for SD 4:3 media scale to 2880x2176 which YT treats as 4k.

1080p has been downgraded since the 1080p premium bracket was put in place, but this does not affect 2160p or "4k" brackets and higher (yet) so consider doing tight encodes and also pushing to Odysee and Internet Archive if you want long term unaltered online publishing, as YT does re-encode media every few years.

YouTube really likes HEVC 120mbps 4:2:0 8-bit 50p/59.94p media uploads in terms of how it's re-compression handles things, container format should stick to MP4.

(YouTube will respect 2160p ProRes HQ and ProRes 4444XQ files however if they are from native encorders or are legally flagged like a native encoder would)

Contray to the belief of some users, YT does also respect color space transfer functions to Rec 709 for SD media if you flag your files properly....

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en

This info here from the support page still holds true in 2025 for SD/1080p media with AVC encoding via FFmpeg.

Progressive scan (no interlacing)
High Profile
2 consecutive B frames
Closed GOP. GOP of half the frame rate.
CABAC
Variable bitrate. No bitrate limit is required, although we offer recommended bitrates below for reference
Chroma subsampling: 4:2:0

[latreche34]

Quote:

Originally Posted by abdula_of_arabia

YT does re-encode media every few years.

Does this explain why SD videos from 15-20 years ago when 4K hasn't uploaded on YT yet are now 4K?

[abdula_of_arabia]

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

Does this explain why SD videos from 15-20 years ago when 4K hasn't uploaded on YT yet are now 4K?

An SD file uploaded correctly or incorrectly over a decade ago will still be SD, YT does not upscale media it never has, just like it has never processed interlaced media with correct flagging for TVs to use or automatically deinterlaced it to be used in a progressive stream properly.

[latreche34]

I hate to go off topic but I see videos from 2009/2010 upload years in HD and 4K, How do you explain those?

[Aya_Rei]

If they are from music companies, then it is most likely because YouTube allows those kind of channels to replace videos, while keeping the upload date, view count and comments

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aya_Rei

If they are from music companies, then it is most likely because YouTube allows those kind of channels to replace videos, while keeping the upload date, view count and comments

Yep, certain people are allowed to upgrade videos.

Sometimes the 1080 is just a label. There is zero discernable difference from 480 to 1080.

[vwestlife]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Master Tape

You can actually get VP9 quality with a minimum resolution of 1152p.

So 1536×1152 for 4:3, and 2048×1152 for 16:9.

That's helpful if you're uploading PAL, since 1152p is a clean 2X upscale from 576i.

But with NTSC I still recommend 1440p, since it's a clean 3X upscale from 480i.

[vwestlife]

Quote:

Originally Posted by abdula_of_arabia

An SD file uploaded correctly or incorrectly over a decade ago will still be SD, YT does not upscale media it never has, just like it has never processed interlaced media with correct flagging for TVs to use or automatically deinterlaced it to be used in a progressive stream properly.

I don't know if it meets your definition of "properly" or not, but YouTube does automatically de-interlace any interlaced video that you upload. And although you don't get 50 or 60 fps playback and of course it doesn't upscale, the quality of whatever de-interlacing method they're using has noticeably improved over time. I think now they're using something like Yadif. I see a lot of videos mangled by people using inferior de-interlacing methods prior to uploading that would've been better off simply uploading as interlaced and letting YouTube deal with it on their end.

[Master Tape]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vwestlife

That's helpful if you're uploading PAL, since 1152p is a clean 2X upscale from 576i.

But with NTSC I still recommend 1440p, since it's a clean 3X upscale from 480i.

Oh never thought of that. The 1440p and 1152p resolutions make more sense now.

[vwestlife]

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

I hate to go off topic but I see videos from 2009/2010 upload years in HD and 4K, How do you explain those?

YouTube keeps the original files you upload and then does periodically re-encode them as new compression schemes and playback options become available.

But HD from 2009-2010 is nothing new, because YouTube began supporting 720p playback in December 2008, and then added 1080p in November 2009. They announced that all previously uploaded 1080p footage would be re-encoded to enable 1080p playback:

YouTube to support 1080p high-definition videos

2160p Ultra HD "4K" playback was added in December 2013.