Serious questions for video editors

[Guest]

I have been searching everywhere for the answers to these stupid questions so my last hope is this. I am very sorry for the wall of text, please help me if you can.

And this is for YOUTUBE only unless told otherwise

1. For uploading videos to youtube, is simply uploading the RENDERED video better in terms of quality but not file size, while ENCODED videos have a bit worse quality but smaller file size? What is the difference between a simple render and encoded for YOUTUBE ( and as far as I understand, if you freelance as a video editor, it depends on the client if he wants a rendered or encoded video?),

2. Upscaling a video to 4k (from 1080 in my case) improves the quality because youtube gives you more bitrate(?), but then why are there so many channels with only 1080p videos? Are they not bothering getting the extra quality, or are correctly upscaled videos still only 1080 on youtube (if they were originally 1080), in my case if i Upscale(Please tell me if I am doing this correctly) I just put it on Adobe media encoder and bump up the resolution of the video to 3840 x 2160, high profile and 5.2 level, h264 format,2 passes, keyframe distance to HALF of the frame rate of the VIDEO, bitrate honestly i just put it at 60 even though it's probably too much, and then i enable both of the "increase quality" options, is this a correct way to upscale ( I understand that the upscaling part is only for the resolution)

3. The 4k upscaled video at 4k on youtube looks exactly like the quality of the file on my desktop(which is filmed at 1080p), while on youtube at 1080 it looks kinda blurry, not as good. Is this to be expected? Will freelance employers expect their video to be reduced quality on youtube or am I doing something wrong?

4.  What output module (ex. loseless) is the best for youtube quality? What about file extension (ex: avi.)? I don't have h264 (in AFTER EFFECTS but I do in adobe media encoder!) in either of them unless i pick quicktime file extension and then I can pick h264

5. I read somewhere about bitrate and internet speed being connected? Does this mean that if I have faster internet and use media encoder I can get better quality? Or was that person talking about youtube only and not the encode part bitrate?

Thank you very much for reading this and your patience with me.

[Mylenium]

To quote:

Serious questions for video editors

...RLLY? Sorry, but to be blunt,  most of what you say is just urban myths and a lot of nonsense. To elaborate:

1. For uploading videos to youtube, is simply uploading the RENDERED video better in terms of quality but not file size, while ENCODED videos have a bit worse quality but smaller file size? What is the difference between a simple render and encoded for YOUTUBE ( and as far as I understand, if you freelance as a video editor, it depends on the client if he wants a rendered or encoded video?),

Irrelevant. YT will re-encode every video based on their multi-stream, multi-format requirements. Hence things like file sizes, bitrates and input formats becoeme mostly meaningless. Two files with same specs regarding dimensions and bit depth will turn out teh same stream data except for minute discrepancies inherent in decoding and analysing the source material and generational degeneration introduced by compressing material over and over. If at all, the only points of relevance are color fidelity and specific metadata for tiem markers and subtitles.

2. Upscaling a video to 4k (from 1080 in my case) improves the quality because youtube gives you more bitrate(?), but then why are there so many channels with only 1080p videos? Are they not bothering getting the extra quality, or are correctly upscaled videos still only 1080 on youtube (if they were originally 1080), in my case if i Upscale(Please tell me if I am doing this correctly) I just put it on Adobe media encoder and bump up the resolution of the video to 3840 x 2160, high profile and 5.2 level, h264 format,2 passes, keyframe distance to HALF of the frame rate of the VIDEO, bitrate honestly i just put it at 60 even though it's probably too much, and then i enable both of the "increase quality" options, is this a correct way to upscale ( I understand that the upscaling part is only for the resolution)

What's not there is not there. You don't gain anything by upscaling stuff. Unless you make an effort to actually improve your scaled video with edge sharpoening, color corrections and other processing it won't look any better and in fact due to the extrapolation might degenerate even further. Using 4k only makes sense when your source material starts out at 4k. Now guess why there's so few channels using it?

3. The 4k upscaled video at 4k on youtube looks exactly like the quality of the file on my desktop(which is filmed at 1080p), while on youtube at 1080 it looks kinda blurry, not as good. Is this to be expected? Will freelance employers expect their video to be reduced quality on youtube or am I doing something wrong?

As per point 1.  - YT re-encodes everything. As per point 2. - mucking around with questionable upscaling procedures achieves nothing. Combine both and you end up with a video that looks more rubbish than the source material.

4.  What output module (ex. loseless) is the best for youtube quality? What about file extension (ex: avi.)? I don't have h264 (in AFTER EFFECTS but I do in adobe media encoder!) in either of them unless i pick quicktime file extension and then I can pick h264

As per 1., 2. and 3. - utterly meaningless

5. I read somewhere about bitrate and internet speed being connected? Does this mean that if I have faster internet and use media encoder I can get better quality? Or was that person talking about youtube only and not the encode part bitrate?

Again irrelevant. YT handles this automatically based on the connection it determines the stream data rates for delivery. This has nothing at all to do with encoding. you simply upload the best possible video and YT generates the specific streams.

Mylenium

[Nexahs1138]

The best output for YouTube is the YouTube preset.

AE doesn't have mp4 rendering any more as it was moved to AME, but you will have H.264 if you look for it.

Lastly, AVI is horrible so never use it, and QT is just something quick with .mov but you have to download the player for that.

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

If you supply YouTube or Vimeo with video using their recommended data rates and you achieve those data rates using multi pass compression they will do a better job of re-encoding your original footage. If you upscale and send to YouTube you don't gain anything at all. The higher data rate only applies to the larger frame size and the compression is mathematically more severe. 4K vs HD with the same compression results in a file that is 8 times as big and requires 8X the bandwidth. All streaming services will re-compress and limit the data rate so the quality will be lower.

There is no free lunch. Send YouTube or Vimeo an uncompressed or lossless file and they will do a very poor job recompressing it to MP4. Use their recommendations and you'll get a better job. The more you up your data rate the worse the re-compression will work and artifacts increase.

For the best results use 29.97 fps or 23.976 fps or 25 fps (PAL countries) and their recommendations. That's as good as it gets. Sending them 60P or 4K from HD is a complete waste of time and tutorials and articles that you find on the web recommending those techniques are written by folks that do not understand how compression and streaming services work.