YouTube: formats…so many formats…what to download…the horror! the horror!*

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by head_unit, Mar 9, 2014.

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  1. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    I'm often trolling on YouTube looking for video clips to use in science classes. I had inherited a bunch in various formats from other teachers, but started downloading all in .mp4, mostly so they would all play back in the same application (QuickTime on a Mac) instead of having multiple things open.

    Sometimes, though, the .mp4 files are not very good resolution. I see 3gp, flv, and (at least with Download Helper) HQ5, HQ36, and a bunch of stuff that Googling does not explain very well.

    Would one of these other formats give better quality* but still play in QuickTime? Or should I just stick with the highest resolution .mp4?


    *let's presume that the source quality is great, which is often not true I know...
     
  2. ridernyc

    ridernyc Forum Resident

    Location:
    Florida, USA
    They are all for the most part antiquated and abandoned horrible streaming formats. For example FLV is a flash video file.

    At this point should be looking for h.264 mkvs.
     
  3. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Well, you're basically pirating stuff that you're not paying for and using it in a classroom. You can't get stuff for free and complain about the quality. I'm sure if you contacted the producers who made the content up on YouTube, they'd sell you (or rent you) better copies.

    YouTube stuff goes all over the place in terms of picture quality. I sometimes see the same clip in "horrible," "mediocre," and "good" quality, clearly from different sources. It helps to get the download as close to the original file as possible, but who knows where this stuff comes from... plus, as is often the case, the people with the rarest material often have less than a clue when it comes to transferring, mastering, compression, and uploading.

    Don't even get me stahted on Vertical Vision, people who use camera phones to shoot off a monitor, or people who post standard-def copies of HD material...
     
    Dan C, alexpop and sugarbuzz like this.
  4. head_unit

    head_unit Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA USA
    Actually there is a lot of stuff (computer animations) etc posted for educational use. I don't show any "real" movies. The reason I want to download is basically to avoid streaming and network problems.
     
  5. Dr. Bogenbroom

    Dr. Bogenbroom I'm not a Dr. but I play one on SteveHoffman.TV

    Location:
    Anchor Point
  6. MLutthans

    MLutthans That's my spaghetti, Chewbacca! Staff

    Bump. Interesting topic.

    As far as the uncopyrighted stuff that appears on YouTube, I am often shocked at what I can find. For instance, yesterday I had the air conditioning die on my wife's Camry. I googled what could be the problem, and a Youtube video had been posted showing how/where to replace the A/C relay. Cool! Twelve bucks later, the A/C works great.

    "Thanks, YouTube!"
     
  7. Anthology123

    Anthology123 Senior Member

    I found many great videos on how to properly re-finish my hardwood floors. It worked out great for me too.
    I did have a professor who downloaded videos from youtube to play for her classes. Then she wanted me to help her figure out how to download a TV series on AOL that was currently in production.
    I told her to contact the producers of the show, but of course, it ended there.
     
  8. Bill Gannon

    Bill Gannon New Member

    Seriously...you are holding up YouTube as a paradigm for copyright holders?
     
  9. robertawillisjr

    robertawillisjr Music Lover

    Location:
    Hampton, VA
    Professors should know what can be used for educational purposes freely and what can't. If in doubt, contact the producer.

    I wrote should, because ethics and legal use of this sort of material is often a part of teacher's training. But teachers are people too. :(
     
  10. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Did you actually read my message chiding people who expect good picture quality from YouTube? My point is: don't expect good picture quality from people stealing video. Especially on video. Trust me, I know what good pictures look like. That ain't it.
     
  11. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    IMO, youtube is a good thing. DL no, but watching? yes...
     
  12. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    yes, it can be the perfect tutor!
     
  13. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I don't agree. It's fine for watching a :45 second cat video, but I wouldn't be caught dead watching a 2-hour movie on a system with bandwidth and compression that bad. Vimeo is a lot better, Amazon better still, and Netflix is tolerable if you have a very fast connection.

    One trick with several of these services: they check out your available bandwidth and then adjust the rate of the feed to fit what you can handle. In other words, if you have some crap 5Mbps service, you're going to get a low quality feed; if you have a 50Mbps FiOS connection, it'll be a much higher-quality feed. But YouTube looks sucky 100% of the time, mainly because of the abysmal quality of the videos people are uploading.
     
  14. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    I do not watch full movies on Utube...use it for research or troubleshooting.
     
  15. Geoff

    Geoff Senior Member

    Location:
    Roundnabout
    Doesn't Netflix top out at about 6Mbps for 1080? If so, you don't need a VERY fast connection, just reasonable. It works fine at that bitrate on my 17Mbps ADSL (although the initial buffering takes ages, but it doesn't stutter after it gets going). Quality looks OKAY. My hope is that as connection speeds increase they will up the bitrate further, my concern is that instead of offering blu-like 1080, they will only offer higher bitrates in their 4K streams, which will result in the same compromises as lower bitrate 1080...
     
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  16. RockWizard

    RockWizard Forum Resident

    You have to remember, the stuff on YT is heavily compressed. Even at HD setting, the output in full screen in most cases isn't that great. Of course, there are exceptions to that.....
     
  17. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    What's really stupid is that YouTube "technically" has a 4K option, but it's so stomped-on, it might as well be a camera phone video. Heavy compression is evil. I can stand light compression -- say, no more than 5:1 -- which is about what HDCam-SR videotape does for HD video.
     
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