Quote Here is my finished video. This looks far from great to me. The amount of artifacts and blocking In the pavement is much too high. There is none of that in the original video. 264 and 265 versions look the same. Is there no way to clean this up or is this a fact of life with youtube? It can't handle any fast motion. I don't usually film anything moving fast so this is the first time I have really seen how bad it gets.

Maybe I should render the 2.7 k files n 4k?
https://youtu.be/XdtbhQGUoxg

The codec at YouTube is designed by engineers for most people. Your 100 Mbps and 45 Mbps bitrate from the GoPro at 29.97 fps is reencoded to 10 Mbps. Attached is a screenshot where the FedEx licence plate at the side of the video is sharp and can be easily read.

I reread your post and see that the blurry artifact pavement is what you are looking at in which I had dismissed because of years of watching digital instead of analog videos. My suggestion would be to create progressive avchd discs or UHD BD to distribute. They will have the higher bitrates.

A good alternative would be to use Vimeo. They do store the originals for viewing and downloads.

I'm not seeing that, but 47 minutes is a very long video to wade through looking for minor (and fleeting) imperfections.

Can you point out 2 or 3 timestamps where you really notice the blockiness? Can you also check the produced video from PD at the same location to see if the artifacts are also present there or if it's only on the YT version?

You certainly can try upscaling to 4K and see if YT will give you a more palatable 1440 version. However it will take much longer to produce and upload, so I'd recommend producing a Range Select on a section of your timeline where you're seeing some noticeable blockiness and see how that turns out first.

YouTube/optodata

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Hi Shatnershairpiece -

I've been following along. optodata & others have given you the right advice about using Profile Analyser to maximise quality.

optodata - yes - the GoPro 7 Black records in everything from 24fps to 120fps in 2.7K/16:9 mode, so that would definitely be an option worth exploring to minimise any motion blur... i.e. record at a higher framerate. That would probably improve IQ of the pavement/vegetation as you're wizzing past.

Here, using your seawall clip, watching the original & produced file side by side on a 4K monitor, it's hard to spot much difference. As others have pointed out, PDR matches properties very closely. Side-by-side Media Info is attached.

I've read (too) that rendering to 4K from 2.7K for YouTube is a preferred option for some GoPro users. Apparently it "forces YouTube to use a higher quality Codec which delivers far better results". I've never given it much weight but I tried it with your seawall clip.

Here's the version rendered in 2.7K using Profile Analyser. Here's the produced to UHD 3840x2160 to test the above (can't remember why I disabled the audio). I'll upload both to Vimeo, which is generally a better option.

Personally, I wouldn't be too disappointed with the quality but you'd have younger eyes than me!

Nice video, though I could have lived without the "duelling ailments" part in the store. Cool ebike anyway!

Cheers - Tony
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Quote I'm not seeing that, but 47 minutes is a very long video to wade through looking for minor (and fleeting) imperfections.

Can you point out 2 or 3 timestamps where you really notice the blockiness? Can you also check the produced video from PD at the same location to see if the artifacts are also present there or if it's only on the YT version?

You certainly can try upscaling to 4K and see if YT will give you a more palatable 1440 version. However it will take much longer to produce and upload, so I'd recommend producing a Range Select on a section of your timeline where you're seeing some noticeable blockiness and see how that turns out first.

1:55- 2:22

2:54 - 4:14

The constant blurring/smearing of the pavement about ten feet in front of the bike. This is not on the original at all. I watched this on 55' TV and it becomes even more annoying. Could even see it on static backgroun of the sky, clouds, mountains. I just can't believe youtube calls this 1440p. If you only watch on a phone, then I guess you won't see too much of this, but even on my 27" monitor or ipad, it's really visible.

Here is screenshot from youtube frame

youtube screen shot


Screenshot of PD render at same time stamp

PD render screen shot

screenshot of original go pro footage

Gopro original 2.7k

You can see there are 3 levels of quality: youtube is the worst, then PD, then original.

Quote You can see there are 3 levels of quality: youtube is the worst, then PD, then original.

I do see that, and this is also to be expected - unless PD can produce using SVRT, which will not degrade the original footage at all. At that point you'd only have 2 levels of quality, and my guess is that YT will look pretty close to the current version.

Again it's very easy to test by recording 20 sec on your GoPro while riding and upload that original clip.

On some level, you may want to take a step back and look at what the ideal outcome of all this effort is. Obviously we'd all like to have perfect quality on everything we make, but maybe spend some time on Imgur looking at what blurry, 25x produced clips pass for content there and you'll likely see that you're overthinking this. I think that most people tend to focus on the message, even if the overall quality isn't ideal.

In other words, how much will blurred pavement 10 feet in front of your bike affect you audience, or the number of subscribers, or the like/dislike ratio? I'm not saying that nobody will ever notice it, but is that a critical part of your story? Is it so distracting that it will affect your video's message? If it is, and the bandwidth limits on YT can't be overcome, what other options are there?

Those are my thoughts on where we've gotten to here.

I agree with that thinking, optodata, & you sure can see a marked difference (especially in still frames) between (a) original, (b) produced file & (c) on YouTube.

It's a compromise.

My little test rendering the 2.7K clips to UHD/4K only showed me there was no point, though I've heard it oft-repeated. Here's the 2.7K version on Vimeo... I don't think it's any better

We can all see the pixelation & artefacts, especially in the fast movement. Try recording & rendering at 60fps & see if YT handles it better.

Here are some comparison screenshots. I won't insult you by highlighting the messy bits:

PDR18 snapshot (UHD Preview)

YouTube 2.7K upload

YouTube UHD upload

Vimeo 2.7K upload

Cheers - Tony
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Quote
We can all see the pixelation & artefacts, especially in the fast movement. Try recording & rendering at 60fps & see if YT handles it better.

It can't be worse. I think that a higher FPS always helps the temporal encoding to produce better results on moving objects.
The pavement looks bad because... is always moving.

I upscaled the 2.7k to 4k with PD. Can you see an improvement?

rendering upscale 2.7k to 4k

I checked a few points at which I'd previously observed smearing/blockiness, & I'd say rendering 2.7K to 4K/UHD for YouTube upload achieves very little.

There are differences but they're not consistent. i.e. one version is not consistently "superior" to the other.

It's be interesting to record part of that seawall ride at 60fps (or higher) at the same road speed to compare the PQ of pavement & vegetation when it's uploaded to YT.

Cheers - Tony
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Here is the same bike ride in 2.7k but at 60 fps. I see little difference over 30. It's a shame that fast moving gopro footage can't actually be seen by anyone at its actual quality unless directly sending the person the entire file. What is the point of all this great tech when you can't even show it to anyone? the only alternative is to pay for vimeo account (that's if they even solve the problem) and that is not cheap.

2.7 k go pro 60fps

Agreed. YT is a huge compromise.

The 60fps footage (I think) is better overall, but that may be to do with the fact that the camera is a bit further away from the pavement. There are still areas of blockiness & smearing in pavement & vegetation but not as pronounced as the previous 30fps version.

I's maintain that most people watching your videos wouldn't be pulling it apart for PQ reasons - they'd just enjoy the ride (& the guitar).

Cheers - Tony
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