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YouTube changing uploaded video format

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staffordian
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YouTube changing uploaded video format

#212244

Postby staffordian » April 2nd, 2019, 8:27 pm

This is something that has bugged me for ages, and I've never got to the bottom of it...

I upload videos to YouTube. The ones I have problems with were recorded in 16:9 format, using a standard definition Panasonic camcorder, and edited using Power Director.

When uploaded, and for a considerable time afterwards, they were fine, but for the last few years, they have changed when viewed. Black bars appear top and bottom of the screen, and the content which previously occupied all of the screen real estate is squashed into the reduced height.

I've read various things such as adding tags to videos can force YouTube to display them differently, but I've either not found the correct tags or this doesn't work.

I've also read that it might be something to do with incompatibilities between Power Director and a YouTube update, but I've seen nothing conclusive, or any way to correct it.

I could reupload (is that a word?!) them, but don't want duplicates of old videos on display, and deleting the old ones will delete my stats and the comments associated with the videos.

Has anyone come across this and found a solution?

An example is here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92rRAouhtCc

Thanks for any help!

Staffordian

Itsallaguess
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Re: YouTube changing uploaded video format

#212245

Postby Itsallaguess » April 2nd, 2019, 8:48 pm

staffordian wrote:
When uploaded, and for a considerable time afterwards, they were fine, but for the last few years, they have changed when viewed. Black bars appear top and bottom of the screen, and the content which previously occupied all of the screen real estate is squashed into the reduced height.

I've read various things such as adding tags to videos can force YouTube to display them differently, but I've either not found the correct tags or this doesn't work.

I've also read that it might be something to do with incompatibilities between Power Director and a YouTube update, but I've seen nothing conclusive, or any way to correct it.

I could reupload (is that a word?!) them, but don't want duplicates of old videos on display, and deleting the old ones will delete my stats and the comments associated with the videos.

Has anyone come across this and found a solution?

An example is here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92rRAouhtCc


I've just tried your link and it looks fine to me, so I'm not quite sure what your problem is at your end.

I've taken a snapshot here of how your video looks on my monitor, and there's no black-bars visible at all -

https://i.imgur.com/dERXxbn.jpg

If I put YouTube into full-screen mode, it's fine too. This is on a 16:9 monitor, if that's relevant to the issue you're seeing at your end.

Cool trains btw...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

staffordian
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Re: YouTube changing uploaded video format

#212250

Postby staffordian » April 2nd, 2019, 9:34 pm

Itsallaguess wrote:
staffordian wrote:
When uploaded, and for a considerable time afterwards, they were fine, but for the last few years, they have changed when viewed. Black bars appear top and bottom of the screen, and the content which previously occupied all of the screen real estate is squashed into the reduced height.

I've read various things such as adding tags to videos can force YouTube to display them differently, but I've either not found the correct tags or this doesn't work.

I've also read that it might be something to do with incompatibilities between Power Director and a YouTube update, but I've seen nothing conclusive, or any way to correct it.

I could reupload (is that a word?!) them, but don't want duplicates of old videos on display, and deleting the old ones will delete my stats and the comments associated with the videos.

Has anyone come across this and found a solution?

An example is here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92rRAouhtCc


I've just tried your link and it looks fine to me, so I'm not quite sure what your problem is at your end.

I've taken a snapshot here of how your video looks on my monitor, and there's no black-bars visible at all -

https://i.imgur.com/dERXxbn.jpg

If I put YouTube into full-screen mode, it's fine too. This is on a 16:9 monitor, if that's relevant to the issue you're seeing at your end.

Cool trains btw...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess


Thanks for looking IIAG. Yeah, they don't make 'em like that any more, more's the pity!

Weird that they appear ok to you. I'm viewing on a Samsung Android tablet, both in the Chrome browser and using the YouTube app and I see this...

Image

and this...

Image

I'm sure it was the same last time I looked on my laptop, but will have to check again.

And just to add to the confusion, when I copy the YouTube link and embed the video on a rail forum I use, the video is squashed there too.

Itsallaguess
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Re: YouTube changing uploaded video format

#212252

Postby Itsallaguess » April 2nd, 2019, 9:42 pm

staffordian wrote:
Weird that they appear ok to you. I'm viewing on a Samsung Android tablet, both in the Chrome browser and using the YouTube app and I see this...


The previous screenshot was taken on a Windows 10 PC, but I've just checked on a relatively old Android tablet, and I've now seen the same issue as you when using the Android Firefox browser and viewing the Youtube link in 'mobile' mode, and I do see the black bars.

If I then switch the Android Firefox browser to 'Request Desktop Site' mode, the video plays normally in the Android Firefox browser, with no black-bars.

Trying the video in the Android Youtube app itself also displays the black-bars.

Have you tried your tablet Chrome browser in 'Desktop' mode?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

staffordian
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Re: YouTube changing uploaded video format

#212255

Postby staffordian » April 2nd, 2019, 10:02 pm

Itsallaguess wrote:Have you tried your tablet Chrome browser in 'Desktop' mode?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Not until now, and yes, it displays correctly, so thanks very much for investigating.

The only issue is that I have no control over how others view the videos (not that many do!), so I guess all I can do is edit the description on each YouTube video which displays this trait to add a note about how best to view them.

Interestingly, later ones edited with Filmora display correctly on all my devices, so I suspect some idiosyncracy in how Power Director encoded the videos is behind the problem.

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Re: YouTube changing uploaded video format

#212275

Postby Itsallaguess » April 3rd, 2019, 4:20 am

staffordian wrote:
Interestingly, later ones edited with Filmora display correctly on all my devices, so I suspect some idiosyncracy in how Power Director encoded the videos is behind the problem.


I'd definitely be looking at the Power Director profile that you're encoding into as a route to success with this, and I'd probably at least have a go at re-converting one of the videos displaying this problem, either using Power Director or Filmora, just to see how painful it might be to carry out that process for all the problematic ones.

There's a Youtube help-community thread here that's discussing the same issue you're seeing -

Suddenly all the HD Widescreen videos I upload are squished half hight top to bottom -

https://support.google.com/youtube/foru ... aIJB91EzAJ

Image

One of the Youtube support guys has listed some things to look out for, so hopefully that will help in your investigations?

If you have a go at recompiling your original video, just to see what the round-trip process might be like, I'd be happy to confirm how it looks at this end with my test devices, so just let me know if you give it a go.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

staffordian
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Re: YouTube changing uploaded video format

#212279

Postby staffordian » April 3rd, 2019, 6:42 am

Thanks for finding that link and the kind offer to check them. I don't have Power Director on my current computer and given the problems, don't intend to install it, but when I have time, I might well try to do something using Filmora

However, although I have the saved Power Director projects somewhere, I suspect Filmora won't be able to import them, which would mean re-editing them from scratch.

Thanks again!

Staffordian

staffordian
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Re: YouTube changing uploaded video format

#212340

Postby staffordian » April 3rd, 2019, 11:14 am

Having thought more about this, I plan to turn a problem into an opportunity. I'll add a note to each affected video, but rather than try to re-encode them, I've decided to produce a series of "compilation" videos, one for each affected year, combining the original footage of each video into a new one.

As I'm using Filmora, I don't anticipate any problems. Most of the older stuff was shot with an SD camera, but I still occasionally use it to get a second viewpoint, editing the footage together with the main HD stuff, and it all works fine.

I will post a link to the first one here once I've done it, so a quick check that it looks OK on various devices would be much appreciated.

Staffordian

Itsallaguess
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Re: YouTube changing uploaded video format

#212343

Postby Itsallaguess » April 3rd, 2019, 11:18 am

staffordian wrote:
I will post a link to the first one here once I've done it, so a quick check that it looks OK on various devices would be much appreciated.


No problem at all - and that sounds like a good approach to the issue.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

staffordian
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Re: YouTube changing uploaded video format

#212798

Postby staffordian » April 4th, 2019, 9:58 pm

Itsallaguess wrote:
staffordian wrote:
I will post a link to the first one here once I've done it, so a quick check that it looks OK on various devices would be much appreciated.


No problem at all - and that sounds like a good approach to the issue.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess


If you get a chance, IAAG, I've uploaded a compilation video here...

https://youtu.be/yCGxaubYnY8

If you get a chance to see if it displays correctly on a variety of devices, I'd be very grateful.

Thanks

Staffordian

Itsallaguess
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Re: YouTube changing uploaded video format

#213573

Postby Itsallaguess » April 8th, 2019, 11:39 am

staffordian wrote:
If you get a chance, IAAG, I've uploaded a compilation video here...

https://youtu.be/yCGxaubYnY8

If you get a chance to see if it displays correctly on a variety of devices, I'd be very grateful.


They all look fine staffordian - checked on my Windows 10 PC, and a couple of Android devices in both tablet and desktop mode - with no letter-boxing at all now...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

staffordian
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Re: YouTube changing uploaded video format

#213606

Postby staffordian » April 8th, 2019, 1:06 pm

Itsallaguess wrote:They all look fine staffordian - checked on my Windows 10 PC, and a couple of Android devices in both tablet and desktop mode - with no letter-boxing at all now...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

That's good news. Many thanks for checking.

Staffordian

staffordian
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Re: YouTube changing uploaded video format

#217580

Postby staffordian » April 26th, 2019, 6:15 pm

Following on from this mystery of YouTube squashing my videos, I think I'm a bit closer to working out the source of the problem.

I believe that the video camera specifications might be at least partially responsible, but I can't fully understand the maths or science...

It's an old standard definition camera, which allegedly, by default, records at a 16:9 aspect ratio but can also record 4:3.

Reading the specs for the sensor, its pixel count is 704 x 576, which if my maths is correct, is neither 16:9 nor 4:3.

I think this means the camera doesn't use square pixels, but quite what ratio of rectangle they are isn't clear. And possibly this non-square pixel shape being interpereted wrongly might be why YouTube doesn't show it correctly.

One option in my current editing software is to set the pixel shape, and options include 1.25:1, 1.5:1 and various others such as 16:9.

By my reckoning, to get my 704 x 576 pixel image to a 16:9 ratio, I'd need the pixels to be 1.4545:1, which isn't an option given.

Can anyone clarify how these things work, as I'm not sure if I'm barking up the wrong tree.

A couple of observations which might be relevent.

First, when I used to import the 16:9 files into Power Director, it always "thought" they were 4:3, and displayed the image "tall" with black stripes either side. I had to tell Power Director it was 16:9 and it then displayed correctly.

And second, if I import the footage into my editor (I'm currently experimenting with DaVinci Resolve) it does the same and I have to change the pixel shape in the clip attributes options as mentioned above.


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