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YouTube Videos

How to Upload, Download, and Convert them

YouTube stores thousands of user videos and creates user pages and also has a Search engine to find videos and play them.

How YouTube Stores the Videos

Clips are Stored as 320x240 but displayed as 425x350. Oddly, all videos are converted by YouTube to flash format (*.flv) and a display size of 320x240 - but they are actually displayed and played on the web page at 425x350. In addition, each page has an "embed" link for others to put up the video on their site, and this embed HTML code uses 425x350 for the display size.

Preparing your video for Upload

For best results, upload your video in the same format as what YouTube stores them as - that is 320x240, and at a frame-rate of 29.97 fps. Personally, I convert them to FLV first but that is not necessary, since they convert them for you.

Maximize your long Videos

- you may have a compilation of smaller clips, or just a long video - and need to optimize the space saving so that it is allowed by YouTube. You see, YouTube places two constraints on uploading, that drives many people insane:

video cannot exceed 100 MB
video length cannot exceed 10 minutes

If you have a long video, you want to get in as much as possible, keep the quality at least "OK" (but preferably "good"), and keep it under 100 MB and 10 minutes.

DivX is the answer !! And the best app to use to convert it to final DivX format is TMPGenc Express 3.0 or 4.0 - here are the DivX settings to use:

create your video in whatever app you use, making sure it is LESS THAN 10 MINUTES LONG (9 min, 50 sec is fine) !! Then convert it using whatever app you use to:

Video = DivX encoder, 320x240, 15 fps (or 14.985 fps if you are picky)
Audio = MP3 mono at 32 kbps, 24 kHz for good sound - 16 kbps, 11.5 kHz gives you fair sound but I had a lot of problems with audio sync with those settings (do NOT use PCM audio !! It makes huge file sizes !!)

The DivX Settings

Before finalizing the conversion - go into the FivX settings (I am assuming you use DivX Pro ):

Preferred Settings for maximized Videos that are less than 10 MB and less than 10 min

at the top, using the drop-down arrow, select Home Theater or Mobile (called "Portable" on versions prior to 6.5)
check the "Preset" box and slide the slider to the max, all the way to "10" (this has almost no effect on file size - just quality because it causes the encoder to work harder and take longer)
go to the bottom of the settings, and select "1-Pass"
NOTE: the default setting of "1-pass, Quality-Based" - that is the ONLY setting that does not show a "BitRate" box !!!
So instead, select the setting "1-pass" - and the Bitrate box will show up.
go back up one line to the "Bitrate" box and enter "64 to 96" kbps bitrate.

Bitrate - the most Important Setting - but you MUST have Quality !!

Bitrate is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT because you must keep the video below 10 MB but you need good quality !! As an example, I recently used 96 kbps, and uploaded the video at 7634 kB. I was not happy at all - because you must realize that after you upload it, then YouTube blows it up on their display to 450x325. The clip was blurry. I then remade it at 112 kbps and it came out to 9316 kB (just a tad under 10 MB). The quality improved dramatically !!

For videos that are very close to the 10 minute limit . . . 64 kbps will always keep it under 10 MB and in most cases will result in 8 MB approx. 96 kbps is a good setting to use because it usually will get you "just under" 10 Mbps. Anything above 96 kbps may very well take you over the limit. Experiment here to find the best setting for you, your system, and your software !!

You can also Reduce the Length a Bit

To really get "good" quality you may need to shorten the video just a bit. Full 10 minute videos that are less than 100 MB are very tricky to make with decent quality. However, 9 minute videos are easy - you can use a DivX bitrate setting of approx 96 to 108 kpbs for 9 minute videos, which will look very nice. So if you want to make your task easier, trim some of the footage off to reduce it down to 9 mins or less.

The "Thumbnail" that YouTube displays when users Search and find your Video

Many people want to know how to assign a particular image or a particular frame of their video to the image that shows up in the YouTube search lists. Again, YouTube "Help" fails to provide anything at all about that !! Here's the deal . . . they take the "exact" center point of your video and grab a frame from there - and that frame becomes the thumbnail !! So you really have very little control over that. All you can do is customize your video clip so that the halfway mark has action that closely matches the theme of the clip. Unfortunately, it often does not. There is no way to take an image and use that for the thumbnail !!

Fixing the Thumbnail

Try to do this "before" you have uploaded the clip. Before you upload any video to YouTube, open it in WMplayer, look at the total length of the clip in the upper right, start the video playing and click "Pause" and then drag the slider to the exact midway point. That is the image that YouTube will display as a thumbnail to your video !!

To change the displayed thumbnail you need to change the frame at the midpoint. The easiest way to do that is to clip some of the video to the right or the left of the midpoint using any of the many "Video Splitters" out there (I use Boilsoft Video splitter).

if you clip some footage off from the right, then the mideway point moves to the left
if you clip some footage off from the left, then the midway point moves to the right

You can, alternatively, add footage too - which will have the reverse effect on the midpoint. If you have already posted your video and the Thumbnail does not show users what your clip is all about, or you just hate it . . . then you will need to fix the midpoint - and update the video (see next section).

Updating your Uploaded Videos

YouTube sucks as far as updates goes !! They do not allow you to directly update your uploaded videos !! Even worse, they offer no help on this !! What you have to do is to remove the old video and then upload the new one, as follows:

Print out or take a screenshot of the "video details" of the "old video" (your existing video that you want to replace) - if you want to rename the video and create a new entry for it in YouTube, then skip this step.
Remove the old video - the link and the Search for that video will still be there in YouTube for a day or two . . .
upload the new & improved version, and use the same name exactly and the same description, etc (unless you want to rename the video and create a new entry for it - then simply enter the new info)
now users will still be able to Search and find the old video thumbnail - but when they click on it to play the video, they will get a message that says ""Video has been deleted by the User"
after a day or two - the old Search will be removed, and the new one will be created. Basically you have completely removed the old and created a new video. However, if you used the same exact name and info and tags for the new video - then as far as the users are concerned, it will appear as if the old video has simply been "updated"

YouTube Censorship

All adult videos are banned on YouTube. You won't find XXX, you won't find X, and you even can't find "R" anymore (bared breasts, implied sex scenes, etc). The most "adult" you will find are women wearing sexy clothes. In fact, YouTube has gone so far with censoring that they even block a some content that is allowed on TV (such as certain Howard Stern clips) !!! Oddly - there is an abundance of violent and disgusting clips. Apparently murder, eating live animals, etc . . . is OK, but a woman's breasts are not. Go figger !!

Videos Flagged as Inappropriate

Initially all videos are NOT flagged as inappropriate - it takes just one user to view the video and click on the "Flag as Inappropriate" and from then on the video is flagged.

When you click to watch videos that are flagged as "inappropriate" you are first taken to a page that has a warning with a "Confirm" button below - as follows:

This is silly, since ANYONE can view the video - even kids. Also it has the effect of disabling the popular "YouTube Grabber"
from getting the clip, so you have to use Keepvid Lite or DLthis.com and even then, the video comes in with one plain vanilla name
of "getvideo.htm" which you need to rename to an flv file, before or after saving the file.

3 Types of YouTube Links

1) YouTube Web Pages Links and Search links (work fine with YouTube Grabber) - this is the normal location of the video on
YouTube and it takes you to a full YouTube page with the video embedded. You get this type of link for all videos from the main
YouTube page, from any user page, or your own page. Example of this type of link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yECVsxGcllU

2) "Related Search" links (work fine with YouTube Grabber) - these are from the list of "Related Search: items that appear
whenever you actually play a video clip. The clip plays on the left and there is a number of related videos listed in a column on
the right. When you click on one of those, the link will have "&mode=related&search=" appended to the right. For example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yECVsxGcllU&mode=related&search=

3) Direct Video link (will NOT work with YouTube Grabber) - these links are that actual storage location of the flv file (the
actual video clip). They do not have the "/watch?v=" string after the ".com" but instead have /v/ after the ".com". These links
cause the video to play full-screen. For example:

http://www.youtube.com/v/yECVsxGcllU

Downloading Videos

KeepVid - http://keepvid.com/

Youtube Grabber (download v3 here) - paste the link to the page into Grabber and click "Grab" - the FLV files will DL to the same folder that you
have YouTube Grabber in

*** The Best way*** dlthis.com - http://dlthis.com/ - the "best" way to DL videos. This site is from the author of YouTube Grabber, and he has basically given up on YouTube Grabber, in favor of this site because it is so easy to use. No more copying and pasting of links - the special shortcut button he provides does it all !! Follow the simple directions at his site to place a "Download This" shortcut on your IE links toolbar. Then goto any YouTube video, click the "Download This" shortcut link, and it will take you to his site, while at the same time copying in the link to the video. Then simply click the "FLV" dowbload link - DONE !!! A box pops up giving you the option to either play or DL the video !!

Converting FLV to another format

Many video players and editing apps will not work with flv files. Therefore many people convert the YouTube downloads to AVI,
WMV, or MPG format. You can do one of three things:

leave the video as an flv file and play it with an flv player or WMplayer (if you have installed an flv codec)
download the flv file and then convert it - "Total Video Converter" works well for this - you can convert the 320x240 FLV file
to a lossless AVI (uses the "Huffy lossless AVI" codec so you will need to get that codec if you do not already have it - it is available from Free-
Codecs.com)
use an online converter website - which will download the file as an AVI instead of an flv !!! Try these sites:

FLV Online Converter - http://vixy.net/flv_converter

Zamzar ( http://www.zamzar.com ) - klunky with too many steps, but at least they do offer MANY video formats (codecs) to choose
from. You need to have the flv file on your hard drive. You load the file to the site, then select from just about any format )
they have many listed), and then they email the converted file to you