Help with optimal YouTube upload format/settings?
 

Hello,

I'm in phase II of my project where I restored my vhs video the best I could. Now, what format and settings should I be using to upload this and trying to avoid degradation from youtube's encoding or transcoding? I realize avoiding it may be impossible but I at least want to lessen the degradation. I have an avi (yv12) and MPEG (dvd compliant) saved. I know at least that YouTube wants a more compressed file so the avi probably isn't going to work buts it's my lossless "master file". Any advice would be appreciated.

I have actually sent HuffYUV compressed SD video to YouTube. The files are huge, but I have the upload capacity. They seem to use FFMPEG for their compression back end. The thing is they compress the heck out of everything. For SD, honestly any high bitrate MPEG4/AVC file will do.

youtube really borks your video no matter what format you use - Vimeo is a bit better

Vimeo does not have the same reach as YouTube. Or does it?

anyone online can watch vimeo - same as youtube
anywhere you link your video to it is still going to be seen

Vimeo doesn't have the community size that Youtube does, no. I prefer Youtube.

Vimeo has too many issues when you secure your browser (NoScript + FlashBlock), while Youtube works fine still.

When I submit video, it's with decent bitrate MP4 files that Youtube doesn't have to re-encode. Everything is pre-processed for noise (Avisynth+VirtualDub filtering), deinterlaced carefully (QTGMC in Avisynth), etc.