Improved Quality of Footage on YT after 1000 subs!

[Riderguide]

One thing that has interested and frustrated me has been the fact that no matter what I did to my settings in my editing software (Davinci Resolve), when I uploaded to YouTube - it looked crap compared to watching the footage on the original file on my computer screen. I couldn't get it to look sharp after uploading to the channel. I was comparing my footage to other larger channels (with more subs) and there was a massive difference no matter what I did. This week I have tipped over that magic 1000 subs barrier ... happy days, and today I've been experimenting with my audio and testing it by uploading a private video. The quality looks FAR FAR BETTER!!!

So has anyone else who has gone over the 1000 subs barrier found this to be the case? Does YouTube dumb down the quality of our uploads for channels with less than a thousand subs?

 

[YBGuy]

One thing that has interested and frustrated me has been the fact that no matter what I did to my settings in my editing software (Davinci Resolve), when I uploaded to YouTube - it looked crap compared to watching the footage on the original file on my computer screen. I couldn't get it to look sharp after uploading to the channel. I was comparing my footage to other larger channels (with more subs) and there was a massive difference no matter what I did. This week I have tipped over that magic 1000 subs barrier ... happy days, and today I've been experimenting with my audio and testing it by uploading a private video. The quality looks FAR FAR BETTER!!!

So has anyone else who has gone over the 1000 subs barrier found this to be the case? Does YouTube dumb down the quality of our uploads for channels with less than a thousand subs?

Interesting theory, and I am not sure. I definitely know that there is some processing time involved when you first upload a video regardless. But quality based on subs would be something new to me.

 

[Riderguide]

Interesting theory, and I am not sure. I definitely know that there is some processing time involved when you first upload a video regardless. But quality based on subs would be something new to me.

YEH for sure there's processing time, I've always also waited for HD to process before going 'public' in the past and not seen a massive improvement. But my clip today appears so much better. I'm interested to see other opinions on this too ;-)

 

[R-Rated]

Bigger channels get more bandwidth but I doubt 1k is the threshold YT uses to define as being "big".

There is a pattern of longer length videos taking longer to buffer to full res on the receiving end and that is where the bandwidth given really shows benefits.

 

[YBGuy]

Bigger channels get more bandwidth but I doubt 1k is the threshold YT uses to define as being "big".

There is a pattern of longer length videos taking longer to buffer to full res on the receiving end and that is where the bandwidth given really shows benefits.

Sounds like a good theory. Have you seen other posts / sites talk about this? Or is this based of your experience?

 

[R-Rated]

Sounds like a good theory. Have you seen other posts / sites talk about this? Or is this based of your experience?

Based on observations when viewing other's works from different sized channels and my own on YouTube.

 

[YBGuy]

Based on observations when viewing other's works from different sized channels and my own on YouTube.

Cool.

 

[Hippo-Drones]

Check which codec the video is using, if it is the VP9 codec on YT it will look way better than the old one!

 

[Moto Mengy]

I didn't notice any difference on my channel after I hit 1K subs, but then I always upload my motovlogs at 1440p because it forces YouTube to use the good VP9 codec when processing, so maybe I never experienced this reduced resolution?

 

[Meifesto]

I watch several <1000 sub channels, and their content doesn't seem to look less then those of the bigger channels to be honest.

 

[SighBored]

There was some discussion that the YT playback codec differs for regular videos compared to popular videos, so don't get too frustrated. Some advised to upscale the video i.e. if your original is 1080p, try to export it as 4K then use that file to upload to YT, during playback there should be a manual option to select 4K quality on your uploaded video (even though it is really just 1080p) so the codec used to play your video is of the better one.

I can't really recall the exact codec name but if you play a video on YT and right click for the stats for nerds it will show what codec being used to play the video on YT, you can compare that codec on a popular video and a unpopular one to see if there is any difference.

 

[Riderguide]

THANKS FOR ALL THE INPUT. I had info to render the content at 2560 x 1440 ... this would then mean YouTube uses the better Codec to process. My problem then was the actual rendered video became about 25% smaller on the screen. I think the fotoage was clearer however.

 

[Hippo-Drones]

You need to change the project settings, rather than just change the resolution of the render

 

[Riderguide]

You need to change the project settings, rather than just change the resolution of the render

Pete, thanks, I'm a proper technowally - I never sit down and study these things haha.

 

[YBGuy]

I didn't notice any difference on my channel after I hit 1K subs, but then I always upload my motovlogs at 1440p because it forces YouTube to use the good VP9 codec when processing, so maybe I never experienced this reduced resolution?

Interesting find, how do you know it always uses the VP9 codec?

 

[YBGuy]

There was some discussion that the YT playback codec differs for regular videos compared to popular videos, so don't get too frustrated. Some advised to upscale the video i.e. if your original is 1080p, try to export it as 4K then use that file to upload to YT, during playback there should be a manual option to select 4K quality on your uploaded video (even though it is really just 1080p) so the codec used to play your video is of the better one.

I can't really recall the exact codec name but if you play a video on YT and right click for the stats for nerds it will show what codec being used to play the video on YT, you can compare that codec on a popular video and a unpopular one to see if there is any difference.

Thanks for reminding me about the stats for nerds, that is a cool feature. Lots of data points to look at, even if I don't entirely know what it is talking about. : )

 

[Moto Mengy]

Interesting find, how do you know it always uses the VP9 codec?

If you look at the stats for a YT video you can see which codec it's using, and any video uploaded at 2.7k automatically gets the better VP9 codec.

 

[YBGuy]

If you look at the stats for a YT video you can see which codec it's using, and any video uploaded at 2.7k automatically gets the better VP9 codec.

Awesome, thanks for the info, will check it out.