YouTube sound quality? And do the video quality settings affect it?

I don't mean the quality of the original recordings, which could be anything from needle drops to dubs from old cassettes to compressed and distorted live cell phone recordings.

But I was listening to some old ABBA demos and wondered about YouTube sound quality, and if higher quality video carried higher quality audio, and got more curious when Googling yielded contradictory answers. So what IS the current status?

 

It's all over the map. It's not You Tube per se, but the quality of the encoders used to generate the videos. Typical quality is mp3, brickwalling at 15 kHz. I've also seen it die at 10 kHz, I've seen a bizarre trough at 9-12 kHz, and also smooth right up to 20 kHz. The "quality" setting has to do with the video resolution, not audio. That's what I've seen, anyway.

 

YouTube sound quality is 192 kpbs AAC as far as I remember. It can sound fairly decent if the audio is given care during the encoding process, but most people are re-encoding low-bitrate MP3s which then get re-re-encoded to YouTube's file format.

 

I'm sure what's been said is all true. Generally speaking however, you won't get better sound quality unless you go to a higher video rate. I usually try to play back at 720p or 480. The 1080 rate slows my computer down too much and the video stutters.

Many times though, in regards to sound quality on Youtube, the saying "you can't polish a turd" comes to mind. Too many people just don't care or aren't technically proficient enough to get it right.

 

Not bad. I've made a couple of DVDs of rare concerts not commercially available and the pic, while obviously not DVD quality, was OK and the sound fantastic (highly source-dependant of course). This was the last one :

 

The video quality setting does affect the audio quality. The highest setting, 1080p is also the highest audio quality. I do hear a difference between 720p and 1080p, if the upload is of a high bit rate, and provided the audio source is high quality. But that is the current "state of you tube" which could change at any time.

 

Youtube sound quality is dependent on your internet speed
Some files are m4a while others are ogg (opus and vorbis)

 

It turns out we're all mostly wrong and that it depends on the date of the upload. Sound quality used to be much better which is surprising.

https://www.h3xed.com/web-and-internet/youtube-audio-quality-bitrate-240p-360p-480p-720p-1080p

 

It is what it is......

this is how I look at it

 

It's quite a mess and it depends on the specific video. For example, this is what could be available (I use the command-line program youtube-dl, youtube-dl »):

Code:

format code  extension  resolution note
249          webm       audio only DASH audio   50k , opus @ 50k, 1.19MiB
250          webm       audio only DASH audio   66k , opus @ 70k, 1.54MiB
171          webm       audio only DASH audio  116k , vorbis@128k, 2.72MiB
140          m4a        audio only DASH audio  128k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@128k, 3.20MiB
251          webm       audio only DASH audio  131k , opus @160k, 3.02MiB
160          mp4        256x144    144p  110k , avc1.42c00c, 13fps, video only, 2.72MiB
278          webm       256x144    144p  117k , webm container, vp9, 13fps, video only, 2.47MiB
242          webm       426x240    240p  255k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 5.19MiB
133          mp4        426x240    240p  260k , avc1.4d4015, 25fps, video only, 6.15MiB
134          mp4        640x360    360p  418k , avc1.4d401e, 25fps, video only, 8.05MiB
243          webm       640x360    360p  452k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 9.25MiB
244          webm       854x480    480p  823k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 16.17MiB
135          mp4        854x480    480p  866k , avc1.4d401e, 25fps, video only, 16.48MiB
247          webm       1280x720   720p 1634k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 33.51MiB
136          mp4        1280x720   720p 2216k , avc1.4d401f, 25fps, video only, 35.69MiB
248          webm       1920x1080  1080p 3123k , vp9, 25fps, video only, 64.76MiB
137          mp4        1920x1080  1080p 4240k , avc1.640028, 25fps, video only, 83.08MiB
17           3gp        176x144    small , mp4v.20.3,  mp4a.40.2@ 24k
36           3gp        320x180    small , mp4v.20.3,  mp4a.40.2
5            flv        426x240    small , h263, mp3  @ 64k
43           webm       640x360    medium , vp8.0,  vorbis@128k
18           mp4        640x360    medium , avc1.42001E,  mp4a.40.2@ 96k
22           mp4        1280x720   hd720 , avc1.64001F,  mp4a.40.2@192k (best)

 

"Hellfest"