YouTube just recently made the switch from the traditional 4:3 aspect ratio to the widescreen 16:9 ratio.

This is a great improvement to be able to take advantage of a wide angle shot and a 1280X720 resolution.

There have been many complaints over the “black bars” appearing on the 4:3 aspect ratio videos due to them not filling the entire 16:9 spot.

I feel the pain of seeing the black frame is far outweighed by the benefit of viewing future videos in widescreen and HD quality.

Note that this switch to 16:9 has a huge effect on the video quality on Youtube. At first, it was difficult to find what was the Best Youtube video format to upload, but after doing some research I was able to come to a concession with the team over at Sorenson Media. Here are the recommended Specs.

Recommended

• > Mp4 video format
• > Quicktime’s h.264 codec
• > Bitrate of 256 kbps for audio(mp3)
• > Bitrate of 4000 kbps for video
• > Resolution of 640X480 for 4:3 aspect ratio
• > Resolution of 1280X720 for 16:9 aspect ratio
• > Max file size 1GB

I uploaded a 1280X720 and a 640×360 video to determine if a higher resolution had an effect on the final converted video. I could not see any quality difference in the videos until I discovered that Youtube does not display 720p by default. It does show the 16:9 aspect ratio by default, but the video is still 480×270. The standard embed code and Url will need to be modified by adding &fmt=22 to the end of the url to view the actual 720p version.

If your not worried about the upload time, it is recommend to upload the highest quality video. I’d say shoot for 999mb.

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