What's the best way to encode video for upload to YouTube?

What's the best way to encode video for upload to YouTube? Video is less than 5 minutes long, standard 4:3 aspect ratio (@ 640x480), imported from a digital camera, edited in Mac OS X with iMovie '09 and has a stereo, musical soundtrack.
Asked by: Guest \| Views: 407

Total answers/comments: 2

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Guest [Entry]

"As you are using iMovie 09 you really don't need to worry about it.

When you go Share > youTube it has 4 different sizes to choose from (480x360, 640x480, 720x540 an 1280x720).

Depending on your input video, not all the options may be available.

You should pick the highest quality that you can, iMovie will then export and upload, and youTube will post process your file down smaller if necessary."

Guest [Entry]

"YouTube recommends MPEG4 compression. I'd try the mpeg4/improved profile (if you're using the export using quicktime option). iMovie also has a built in export to YouTube setting (at least it did in iMovie '08) which is probably more than adequate.

YouTube is going to re-compress the video in any case, so you don't really have to worry about file size and compatibility, which are the two big hassles/tradeoffs when doing compression.

http://www.youtube.com/t/howto_makevideo"