Does YouTube make my game clips look bad?
Does YouTube make my game clips look bad?
DSR just won't help your picture quality, so it's useless for making your videos look better on YouTube. Your photos always stay at the same resolution as your screen because of that. But DSR is great for showing exactly what a game looks like when played on settings higher than yours. You also need to remember that YouTube will make small things look blurry if you upload 1080p or lower clips, unless your channel gets enough views to get special fast processing for bigger ones like 4K. Because of this rule, I resize all my 1080p videos before uploading them and then compress them so they get the better treatment from YouTube. To make a video look good at that size, I suggest using a bitrate of about 30,000 megabits per second. There will be some blurriness because of the resizing, but the fast processing fixes it up perfectly. It takes longer to process these big files than normal ones, and sometimes it even takes days if YouTube is doing maintenance or something like that, but it's totally worth it. You shouldn't upload huge raw capture clips without compressing them first; a video editor will do this for you easily. The tool doesn't have to cost much or be fancy, I actually use a free program called Avidemux. If you leave the files uncompressed and big, YouTube viewers often pause while waiting, which slows down how many views your videos get.
Sure, I have Avidemix as my video editor but never used it because I don't know how to use it. You're saying I need to change my 1080p videos to 1440p at a bitrate of 30,000? Okay then what is the best video output format if I want to set the bitrate that high? I was using Mpeg4 avc but couldn't find how to increase the bitrate. I can go to "filters" and then change the resolution. If you have a video showing how to explain the 3rd and 4th paragraphs, that would be great. And yes my uploaded vid was indeed 1080p but it was way blurry compared to the original. The chromatic effects of the gold skin effect are completely gone which is absolutely unacceptable. But what about those videos I see on YouTube where they post exactly the same quality how the GPU produces the picture?
Oh yeah, I made the video smaller so it wouldn't take up too much space on my computer. But guess what? YouTube didn't save any of the cool stuff from the original version when they uploaded it. The new file looks way worse than the old one you're looking at now.
You should use Mpeg4 AVC (x264) as your codec. Then in the Configure tab set Encoding mode to Average Bitrate (two pass), and set the Average bitrate box to 30,000. Since I am using ShadowPlay to capture (usually on Instant Replay for about 20 minutes), I just leave Audio at Copy. Then set Output Format to Mp4 Muxer. To resize under video output category click the Filters tab, scroll near the bottom and double-click swsResize. In the Resize Dimensions boxes set Height to 1440. It used to automatically put width at 2560 when Aspect Ratio is set to the default Lock Aspect Ratio, but now you have to manually set it for some reason. Just one click on the width box sets it to that though. Then in the Resize Method box I recommend Lanczos-3, as it's the sharpest. However it is best when using Lanczos-3 not to use ANY Nvidia Sharpening in NCP's Scaling options, otherwise you get ringing. If you prefer a bit softer look, use the default Bicubic for Resize Method. You then only need to go to File>Save in Avidemux to save the compressed file as any name you want. If Avidemux starts playing out of sync badly or stops responding well to start and stop commands, this usually means it's cache is too full. To solve this problem, click Recent on the top tool bar, then Clear recent items. Another tip, is you can load your video clips way faster by just clicking Cancel on the little Encoding frame type window that shows when you open a video file, then click Yes. I decided to show two videos of the same mission in Ghost Recon Wildlands, as after further checking I noticed there seems to be more visible difference when one video is uploaded at 1080p, and the other at 1440p. As I said before, YouTube will sometimes use VP9 processing on 1800p videos, and it could be they use it for that res when uploading a 1400p clip, though I'm not sure. To get the best example of how these videos differ in sharpness, you'll need to view them both in fullscreen, preferably on a display that's not too small (mine is 32"). Set one to 1080p, the other to 1440p, not Auto. The difference is most noticeable in the last half of the mission where you're escaping on a road. You may also notice less difference here than with the compression method you were using, because Avidemux Average Bitrate using the Mpeg4 AVC (x264) codec at 30,000 bitrate produces very good results. 1080p Upload 1440p Upload As far as your 3rd paragraph, if you mean why are some people's 1080p videos so good on YouTube, like I said, it's usually to do with how many views they get. Generally if you look at the views of the video and it's got like several hundred thousand views, YouTube will give it VP9 processing, because those videos are valuable ad space for them. This also means people getting lots of views can get monetary kickbacks from YouTube, but it can also mean the viewers have to put up with ads interrupting the viewing experience.