Youtube Question

[singletracker]

Does it cost anything to upload videos to Youtube? Do they send out spam after opening an account? Is there a better way to upload videos that you want to share with a few people?

Thanks in advance.

[Jakobi]

Only costs the data your ISP stings you for uploads (I know mine counts uploads and downloads as traffic out of my usage).

They don't spam you. Some people might occassionally send a spammy request but its pretty good. Sucks that youtube blocks the audio in some countries if you use copyrighted music.

[GMP]

No cost, and if your paying a fixed cost per month for broadband service all is costs is time. As far as "better" way, in YouTube (and Vimeo) you are limited to their encoding specs, where as if you set your own host, you can encode for the highest quality. Youtube re-encodes everything you upload, to a max of 5-8MB/s bit rate for HD. The Youtube encoder sometimes can make your high quality upload look like crap if your encode is too aggressive. I'll post some details later on the best settings, you have to keep it relatively simple. If you want to share a limited amount of max quality video, you can host your own on a Dropbox account. You get 2G free and can pay for more. I've done this for short clips and it works good. Plus, its a great cross platform app to share stuff between your PC, Mac, Android, etc.

[singletracker]

Thanks guys. The simpler the better for me. I don't really know anything about encoding. I'm a noob when it comes to creating videos.

[waycrazy]

I am in the same boat and will be keeping a eye on this thread. I got a new contour and will be wanting to share some vid but have absolutely no clue how.

[singletracker]

waycrazy,

I posted my first vid a few days ago, and there really wasn't much to it. You may want to download some video editing software, but you don't have to. I used Microsoft Video Maker which was pretty easy to use.

[waycrazy]

Thanks I appreciate the advice.

[Binni]

Get a mac, mac mini, imac or any, it comes with a fine and easy to use software, you don't have to know anything about encoding and stuff. The editing software, imovie, has very good instuctions in the help, it is very easy to use, and you can share your videos to youtube or vimeo from there?
http://www.apple.com/ilife/imovie/what-is.html

[GMP]

I use a Mac (Macbook Pro) but I'm also a Software Engineer that makes a living making PCs control things. The Mac is easier as a turnkey process, and no you don't need to know anything about encoding if you don't want to. Youtube is so dummied down that quality is junk compared to original GoPro video. If you want to do anything beyond YouTube, its good to learn some encoding basics to retain max quality. High motion helmet cam video is among the hardest to encode and retain quality. The default H.264 encoder settings in Quicktime sacrifice quality in motion scenes and shift it to still scenes. So the nicest part of your video is the front of your fender or visor.