Hello All,

I am sure we are not the first ones to come across this issue...

We go through the process of exporting our videos in the highest quality possible, we then upload them to YouTube, play them, and YouTube plays it 9 out of 10 times with low quality resolution as default. Why!?

We export in 1080p HD format, and YouTube plays it by default on 360p or 480p most of the time. You can always stop the video, select the full screen option (sometimes when you do this, it will bump you up to a higher resolution...but again, not always) and explicitly choose for the video to play in 1080p, which everyone in this forum would know how to do, but what happens with Joe the Plumber...? He would open up the video, say "Arghh ugly blurry images...next, video...bye!"

In the YouTube Settings > Playback section you can choose for:

Playback
Video playback quality:

[Checked] - Always choose the best quality for my connection and player size
[Checked] - Always play HD on fullscreen (when available)

But in reality....it doesn't do this!?

Can anyone shed some light on how we can "force" YouTube to play our videos to our audience with 1080p if their hardware/connection has the capabilities to do so?

Thanks!



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Win 7 64 bit - DirectX11 - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti - 16 GB RAM - Intel Core i7-2600 @3.40GHz 3.40GHz

Why not contact Google? YouTube is their baby.

You can provide a shared link that displays HD when you choose it specifically.


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" If I had Alzheimer's (Old Timers), would I know it? "

Contacting Google/YouTube on something like this would be like putting a message in a bottle...we've done it in the past for other things. No luck.

Most of the examples/showcases posted in this forum have this issue as well. That's why we post it here

Hopefully we can collect some good input on this thread, from the people that really are keen to solving/getting around these issues.

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Win 7 64 bit - DirectX11 - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti - 16 GB RAM - Intel Core i7-2600 @3.40GHz 3.40GHz

Its not much of an issue to me. I know how to change the resolution and I do so if necessary or warranted. To my knowledge the "Use HD in full screen" does work when available.

But isn't this because you are talking about Vimeo?

When it comes to this point, Vimeo is much simpler than YouTube (sometimes it's in your favor, sometimes it's not)...

Do you have any videos on YouTube that consistently play at the highest quality resolution (when available of course)?

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Win 7 64 bit - DirectX11 - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti - 16 GB RAM - Intel Core i7-2600 @3.40GHz 3.40GHz

The resolution changes based upon the video player size. At the small size my video here plays at 360, at medium at 480 and at full screen at the highest resolution available (720 in this case). This is how I expect it to work and this is how it works on my browser.

Checked] - Always choose the best quality for my connection and player size - This sounds to me like the resolution is decided by the player size.

[Checked] - Always play HD on fullscreen (when available) - How is this not working for you?

In difference to Vimeo, YouTube starts playing the moment the page loads, so the initial resolution is set to a small player. To go to full screen, you would click for it as the video is already playing, and here 2 things happen:

a) It stays in the low resolution option as it had with the small player.

OR

b) It goes for 720p...very very rarely does it go for the full 1080p. So does it go HD? Yes it does. But the question is, why doesn't it go for the highest res. available as the You Tube setting suggests?

This behavior can be seen in 90% of YouTube videos.

Now, I can understand that of that 90%, the vast majority don't bother with these details, that's why for most this is a non-issue. But for us (I mean communities like these, animators, video producers, etc.) it does matter.

The only thing we would like to achieve is to "force" YouTube to play in the highest resolution available right off the bat (without having to manually change it), as the setting suggests.


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Win 7 64 bit - DirectX11 - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti - 16 GB RAM - Intel Core i7-2600 @3.40GHz 3.40GHz

Here is a quick example of what we mean...


NOTE: This is NOT our material, this only meant as an example. The link was found in the showcase section of this forum. This is just to illustrate that this is a general issue.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NDi_IJSNnc&feature=related

When it starts playing, immediately click on full screen mode...does it default to the best quality resolution?

For us: NO

...and that means "NO" from 5 different terminals in 3 different locations, various OSs from Mac, Linux and Windows....with 4 different browsers: Firefox, IE, Safari, and Opera...and not a single time did YouTube play at it's highest resolution, which in this case would be 720HD....

As we have said before, we had to do it manually, and THEN...it went to the highest resolution...

But how do you get it to do it from the start??

I think that we can all agree that the difference between 720pHD and one level down 480p is GIGANTIC! One is very pleasant to look at, the other one is not. If your audience has an initial attention span of 5 seconds, and they get the low resolution version...chances are:

YOU LOST THEM....






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Win 7 64 bit - DirectX11 - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti - 16 GB RAM - Intel Core i7-2600 @3.40GHz 3.40GHz

I agree you should be afraid of your audience. In fact, I think you should be terrified of not making a good impression, and therefore losing them. But I think you have 1000 far more important things to worry about than whether your video comes up initially at 480p.

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Member of Content Wizards

Hey there Paumanok West, indeed you are right...but we just crossed out the 999th item on the list, and are ready to tackle this last one

Any thoughts?

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Win 7 64 bit - DirectX11 - NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti - 16 GB RAM - Intel Core i7-2600 @3.40GHz 3.40GHz