Al Gore Fixed My Video
So it turns out that there is a great encoding staff at Current.com and they do actually care about video quality. Here is the reply I got from them regarding the frame loss in the video I submitted to their site:
- Mario from Current.com here. We're aware of our transcoder woes, and sadly I have to correct one thing: we actually lower the framerates on uploads to (ducking in shame) a shocking 15 frames per second (/ducking in shame).
From the perspective of high quality video transcoding, this is obviously not something to be terribly proud of. We went this route to accommodate some of our users with much lower bandwidth, but we recognize the impact it's had and are working on a releasing a fix in the very near future. In the meantime, we re-processed your video and it is now running at the full 29.97 fps.
The improvements at Current.com now make YouTube the worst video site on the internet. I did find out some great information from an inside source concerning YouTube encodes, however. You might be able to avoid a transcode if you submit your video to YouTube in the following format: FLV video at 320 kbps using the H263 Sorenson-Spark codec with MP3 audio. This is the target profile they transcode to and often they will keep your video "as is" if you already meet the target profile. So for best results remember that the YouTube target video profile is FLV320 using the H263 Sorenson-Spark codec (and encode to this profile). I will try this out and let you know what the results look like. There is one drawback with FLV320, however. Each file that I provided to YouTube for the video shoot-out was an HD WM9AP encode and since the source was HD the site added the "watch in high quality" feature to my clip. You can actually watch a somewhat decent version of the clip if you click the "watch in high quality" link. If you submit a 320 kbps encode, however, I don't think they are going to provide the "high quality" link. I mean, how much better can the clip get? So realize that while you are optimizing for 99% of your audience with the FLV320 encode you are also losing out on the potential for anyone to see a high quality version of your video. Just something to think about. Here's a table that recaps the video upload results to date (from worst to best):
| Video Upload Site | Windows Media 9 Advanced Profile | MPEG2 Standard Profile | FLV320 H263 Sorenson-Spark with MP3 |
| YouTube | Horrible resolution, blurry, color problems | Horrible resolution, grainy, better color | Avoids the transcode |
| Current.com | Can't handle it | Will soon improve frame rate, good resolution | (Haven't tried) |
| Yahoo Video | Can't handle it | Second best resolution, great color | (Haven't tried) |
| MSN Video | Best resolution you can get, best color | (Haven't tried) | (Haven't tried) |