<p>I'm going to repost a section of my answer from <a href="https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/4250/upload-a-video-to-youtube-without-losing-contrast/10079#10079">this question</a>, as it seems generally relevant:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>YouTube (as well as Vimeo, and practically every other video website
  nowadays) works using the H.264 codec. Here are <a href="https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en" rel="nofollow noreferrer">YouTube's
  instructions</a> for how they'd like videos to be encoded for upload.</p>
  
  <p>The TL;DR version of that page:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <ul>
    <li>Container: .mp4</li>
    <li>Audio Codec: AAC-LC</li>
    <li>Video Codec: H.264</li>
    </ul>
  </blockquote>
</blockquote>

<p>When you upload the incorrect codec - like AVC-HD you are using above, YouTube has to re-encode your video, resulting in the loss of quality and contrast you have been experiencing.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-04-20T15:49:05.883Z
From my experience, they re-encode *always*.
feklee
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-11T08:24:48.633Z
2014-02-11T08:24:48.633Z
2017-04-13T12:46:08.110Z
nchpmn
<p>This is just a result of the compression that Youtube chooses to apply.  Your initial data rate for the video (3.5 megabits for an SD video) is exceptionally high and not really designed for streaming.  Youtube probably sees that it is only an SD stream and then drops the bit-rate accordingly.</p>

<p>It may not be possible to get better quality since Youtube's system decides what compression settings to apply for their transcode, however you could try submitting videos which match with Youtube's <a href="https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en" rel="nofollow">suggested transcode settings</a> and that might help.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-07T15:02:37.123Z
2014-02-07T15:02:37.123Z
AJ Henderson
<p>It's 2018 now and here's what I do, in case anyone else is wondering about this.</p>

<p>Suppose I've created a video as a wmv or whatever (e.g. via PowerPoint).  I use an online conversion tool to <strong>convert to mp4.</strong></p>

<p>This gives great results when uploading to youtube.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-03-19T14:19:19.670Z
2018-03-19T14:19:19.670Z
aparente001
<p>This is because youtube uses its own compression. When you upload, that videos is a compressed mp4 or wmv ,quicktime or something. Youtube's process compress it much more. You lose details in the corners of your movie. You lose many data when a frame makes a decent change comparing to the previous frame. And even lose quality on very dark regions and very bright regions. Youtube cannot handle contrast rate wich is bigger then the average. I tried to upload many different ways and didn't have any luck.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-07-01T15:20:23.913Z
Welcome to the Video Production Stack Exchange.  Please be aware that answers aren't the right place for venting about your frustration with a product in unproductive ways.  I think you had some worthwhile things to say, so I edited your answer to remove the parts that weren't relevant to the question at hand and were excessive.
AJ Henderson
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-07-01T15:13:35.710Z
2015-07-01T15:18:39.490Z
2015-07-01T15:18:39.490Z
Gergely G
<p>I have some problem with video and its representation on youtube. When I upload video which was encoded with MPEG4 or H.264 codec, I get bad quality video after youtube processing.</p>

<p>What is this video. And what is my task. 
I get source video from Iphone, Ipad, Ipod. Format of this video is - mp4. Then, I decode this video on frames with Java Library - Xuggler. This library is a wrapper of ffmpeg. After some filters on frames, I encode this frames on final video. I use codec MPEG-4 and try H.264, final format - mp4. And this final video is fine. It has the same quality as source video, when I play this video on Windows Media Player. But, when I upload video on youtube, after processing I get video with bad quality.</p>

<p>This is characteristics of source video, after uploading on youtube it doesn't lose quality:</p>

<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/920ki.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></p>

<p>And this is characteristics of final video. It loses quality after youtube processing:</p>

<p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/g71K4.jpg" alt="enter image description here"></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-02-17T00:14:01.637Z
Is the question just, "Why does my video lose quality when I upload to YouTube?" If so, it's because YouTube isn't in the business of providing high quality video - it provides vast amounts of streaming video, so you should expect a lot of compression, and probably transcoding.
Dr Mayhem
<video><youtube><codec>
Youtube convert my video on bad quality
Arthur Spirke
# Youtube convert my video on bad quality

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-02-07)

I have some problem with video and its representation on youtube. When I upload video which was encoded with MPEG4 or H.264 codec, I get bad quality video after youtube processing.

What is this video. And what is my task.
I get source video from Iphone, Ipad, Ipod. Format of this video is - mp4. Then, I decode this video on frames with Java Library - Xuggler. This library is a wrapper of ffmpeg. After some filters on frames, I encode this frames on final video. I use codec MPEG-4 and try H.264, final format - mp4. And this final video is fine. It has the same quality as source video, when I play this video on Windows Media Player. But, when I upload video on youtube, after processing I get video with bad quality.

This is characteristics of source video, after uploading on youtube it doesn't lose quality:

![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/920ki.jpg)

And this is characteristics of final video. It loses quality after youtube processing:

![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/g71K4.jpg)

**Tags:** video, youtube, codec

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Is the question just, "Why does my video lose quality when I upload to YouTube?" If so, it's because YouTube isn't in the business of providing high quality video - it provides vast amounts of streaming video, so you should expect a lot of compression, and probably transcoding.  

---

## 4 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2014-02-11. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

I'm going to repost a section of my answer from [this question](https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/4250/upload-a-video-to-youtube-without-losing-contrast/10079#10079), as it seems generally relevant:

> YouTube (as well as Vimeo, and practically every other video website
> nowadays) works using the H.264 codec. Here are [YouTube's
> instructions](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en) for how they'd like videos to be encoded for upload.
>
> The TL;DR version of that page:
>
> > * Container: .mp4
> > * Audio Codec: AAC-LC
> > * Video Codec: H.264

When you upload the incorrect codec - like AVC-HD you are using above, YouTube has to re-encode your video, resulting in the loss of quality and contrast you have been experiencing.

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: From my experience, they re-encode *always*.  

---

### Answer by username_4 on 2014-02-07. Score: 2

This is just a result of the compression that Youtube chooses to apply. Your initial data rate for the video (3.5 megabits for an SD video) is exceptionally high and not really designed for streaming. Youtube probably sees that it is only an SD stream and then drops the bit-rate accordingly.

It may not be possible to get better quality since Youtube's system decides what compression settings to apply for their transcode, however you could try submitting videos which match with Youtube's [suggested transcode settings](https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en) and that might help.


---

### Answer by username_5 on 2018-03-19. Score: -1

It's 2018 now and here's what I do, in case anyone else is wondering about this.

Suppose I've created a video as a wmv or whatever (e.g. via PowerPoint). I use an online conversion tool to **convert to mp4.**

This gives great results when uploading to youtube.


---

### Answer by username_6 on 2015-07-01. Score: -2

This is because youtube uses its own compression. When you upload, that videos is a compressed mp4 or wmv ,quicktime or something. Youtube's process compress it much more. You lose details in the corners of your movie. You lose many data when a frame makes a decent change comparing to the previous frame. And even lose quality on very dark regions and very bright regions. Youtube cannot handle contrast rate wich is bigger then the average. I tried to upload many different ways and didn't have any luck.

> **Comments:**
> **username_4**: Welcome to the Video Production Stack Exchange.  Please be aware that answers aren't the right place for venting about your frustration with a product in unproductive ways.  I think you had some worthwhile things to say, so I edited your answer to remove the parts that weren't relevant to the question at hand and were excessive.  

---

