Tips of Getting Best YouTube Video Format for YouTube Uploading

I just uploaded a couple of small videos to YouTube and the quality was not as good as I was hoping. The videos were rendered as wmv 11 512 kb. I tried one of the same videos rendered as wmv 11 8 mbps and it looked even worse. Any suggestions for the best video format for YouTube? - VideoHelp.com Forum

Have you ever received an "invalid file format error message when you're uploading"? Not sure which is the best format to save or upload your YouTube video? Want to know what video formats are best supported by YouTube so that you can upload videos to YouTube without any problem? Find your answers here about the best video format for YouTube uploading.

If your videos aren't in the compatible video formats? Don't worry. You can free download YouTube video converter sofware to convert video to YouTube recognized video formats on both Mac (OS X 10.11/10.12) and PC (Windows 10).

YouTube Supported Video Formats

If you want to upload the videos you shot to YouTube, the first thing you need to know is what video formats YouTube support. Even though YouTube accepts a variety of video formats, including HEVC/H.265, there are still some video formats being booted out. Below are the best video formats supported by YouTube.

• MP4 (a multimedia container format standard specified as a part of MPEG-4)
• FLV (Flash Video, a kind of video format )
• AVI (Audio Video Interleaved,a kind of video format)
• MOV (the QuickTime multimedia file format)
• 3GPP (A multimedia container format defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for 3G UMTS multimedia services.)
• MPEG4 (A method of defining compression of audio and visual digital data developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group)
• WMV (Windows Media Video)
• MPEGPS (A data container associated with the MPEG program stream format, which is used for multiplexing digital audio, video and more.)
• WebM (A video file format primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML5 video tag. )
• HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding, or H.265. Compared to H.264, HEVC offers up to 50% bit rate saving at the same quality, which makes it perfect for 4K video).

It's stated by YouTube that MP4 is the best format for uploading. It provides better quality than FLV and is not as heavy as AVI. WMV HD format seems to lose its quality while 3GPP and MPEG-PS resolutions are too small.

Make Video Format Best Suitable for Uploading to YouTube

Actually, to know the YouTube supported video format for YouTube uploading is just the beginning. If you want to get the best uploading results, for example speed up YouTube uploading speed, you'd better to know the best settings for uploading to YouTube. Here's a summary of the audio and video specifications you will need if you want to learn the best video audio formats for YouTube uploading.

• Best video codec for YouTube: High profile H.264 (in progressive scan mode)
• Best video format for YouTube: MP4
• Best audio codec for YouTube: AAC-LC (Stereo or Stereo + 5.1 channels)
• Aspect Ratio: Native aspect ratio 16:9 without pillar boxes or letter boxes. So make sure to change the aspect ratio to 16:9 for a smooth YouTube uploading.
• Resolution: 480p: 854x480 and 360p: 640x360(16:9) are recommended.
• Audio format: MP3 or AAC preferred
• Frames per second: 30
• Maximum length: 15 minutes for unverified account (we recommend 2-3 minutes) and 11 hours for verified account.
• Maximum file size: 2 GB

To know more details about the best YouTube video file format and get a better setting for YouTube videos uploading, please follow the table directly below this summary.

1. Best YouTube Video Format

Resolution: Recommended 1280 x 720 (16:9 HD) and 640 x 480 (4:3 SD). There is no required minimum resolution – in general the higher resolution the better and HD resolution is preferred. For older content, lower resolution is unavoidable. It's discouraged to add horizontal black bars before uploading a video to YouTube. If you do it, black bars will be all around your video and it will look rather horrible.

Bitrate: As bitrate highly rests upon codec, there is no recommendation or minimum value. You are suggested to optimize video for resolution, aspect ratio and frame rate rather than bitrate.

Frame rate: If it's possible, you'd better keep an original frame rate. Usually videos have the best quality if the frame rate is between 25-30 fps. Some modern cameras give even 2000 fps, but YouTube doesn't support such a quality yet. Particularly, pulldown and other frame rate resampling techniques are strongly discouraged.

Codec: H.264, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 preferred. These codecs are used in most modern videos, so you'll hardly need to change this parameter.

2. Best YouTube Audio Format

Codec: MP3 or AAC preferred

Sampling rate: 44.1kHz sampling rate and the higher bitrate possible, but no less than 192 kbps

Channels: 2 (stereo)

Tips:
1. Compressing videos each time will generally result in degrading video quality. That the truth about videos! The best approach is to compress files the least amount possible. By knowing the abovementioned video formats and settings for YouTube website, you'll surely get the best YouTube uploading result.

2. For those who'd like to download videos from YouTube for offline playback, MacX YouTube Downloader can be a solid solution, which helps you download YouTube videos HD, including 720p, 1080p, 4K UHD movies, music videos, clips, TV shows etc. on YouTube with a few clicks without an error and watch YouTube videos stored on Mac computers anytime.

3. To watch downloaded YouTube videos offline on iPhone iPad mobile devices, sync YouTube video file to iPhone iPad with MacX MediaTrans. iTunes, however, is not recommended here as this all-around iTunes alternative Mac can convert best video format for YouTube FLV MKV etc. to iPhone iPad accepted formats, and transfer YouTube video of any format to iPhone iPad speedily without waiting.

4. There are cases the videos are formatted in AVCHD, MTS or others that are out of YouTube video format list, thus leading to YouTube problems during uploading. So you have to convert the video to YouTube supported video format like FLV, MP4 with a YouTube video converter like MacX Video Converter Pro, so as to ensure proper uploading.

Still have any problem on what video formats are supported by YouTube or how to convert videos to YouTube supported formats, just email us >>