fmt=18 considered lower quality than HQ FLV?
in
13 posts,
8 voices
Nintendo Man...
User
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This is something that's bothered me with the play "best quality available" function. Why is fmt=18 considered lower quality than HQ FLV? If anything fmt=18 should be considered higher since its audio is in stereo AAC @ 128kbps while HQ FLV is mono MP3 @ (unknown, VLC didn't say)kbps. Based on video quality, they look the same to me. If you put HQ FLV above fmt=18 because the video bit rate is higher, that doesn't mean anything when h.264 (the encoder fmt=18 uses) is much more efficient than the encoder used by the HQ FLV. |
Basking hobo
Scriptwright
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fmt=18 should only be used for music categorised videos.fmt=6 should be used for every other types of videos because it has a higher bitrate. |
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Nintendo Man...
User
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Except a higher bitrate means nothing when the FLV is an older and less efficient encoder. Bitrate can not be used as a direct comparison between formats. It's just like CPUs and the "MHz myth". (google it if you don't know) Take an 80 kbps MP3 and compare it to a 64 kbps OGG Vorbis or AAC. Even though the OGG/AAC has lower bitrate it'll still sound better than the MP3 just because those formats' encoders are BETTER. (and yes, I even tried it myself just to confirm - you can even hear compression artifacts in the MP3 - the OGG/ACC just sounds a bit more muffled than the original) |
DeathWolf
User
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fmt=6 used to be better, but has now been more or less been deprecated by fmt=18 which has better audio, and h264 encoding in mp4 instead of flv.
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Nintendo Man...
User
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My guess is that fmt=6 is only being used instead of fmt=18 for compatibility sake. (you need a 1 year old or newer version of flash for h.264) I'm guessing in the future that fmt=6 will be dropped in favor of fmt=18 once more people and devices use newer flash player versions. |
Mindeye
Script's Author
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It's easy for me to make the script format 18 above format 6, and some people have complained about that, but every time I ask about this change, we can't come to an agreement. Format 18 has better sound, but I'm not sure about video quality |
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Nintendo Man...
User
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why not just have it "programmable"? What I mean is to have an option to put the formats in any order you like. This would also help in the future for using a "best quality" option while having fmt=22 on the bottom for those of us with slower bandwidth. |
Jelle Mees
Scriptwright
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The video quality is identical. The only way to see the difference is to put two youtube pages next to eachother, then make the players 25% bigger and watch the movies closely. It's very hard to tell the difference even if you do this. Since the image quality difference can be ignored, and since format 18 has stereo-sound, format 18 is the most logical choise for the "Highest Quality" default. Stereo audio was used for the first time almost 100 years ago, who in Gods name wants mono-sound in 2009? |
Photodeus
Scriptwright
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Stereo should really be the default in all videos ... and surround the new "hi quality option". I'm amazed that so many people actually "listen" to music on Youtube... and most don't even realize it's in monaural quality. When I tell them the quality is horrible, they don't even know what I'm talking about. |
Saxtus
User
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FLV (fmt=6) uses 480x360 size with Sorenson Spark encoding at 900 kbps and 96 kbps Mono MP3 sound
Obviously the argument here is about video quality and not sound quality (which is far superior at fmt=18 anyway due to using AAC codec instead of MP3, and this if we don't pay attention to stereo sound!). About the video now: The h.264 codec has better looking videos at lower bitrates so there wasn't any need for YouTube to encode h.264 at 900 kbps, because the result at 512 kbps that is currently uses, produces at least equal result as the old Sorenson encoder (if not better). People should take a look at the encoding used, instead of blindly see only the bitrate, because there are cases like this, when SMALLER size means BETTER quality due to the video codec that is used. If you don't believe me, look some tests that are made here: http://mac.sillydog.org/qt/compare.php Some more links for your enjoyment:
Hopefully someday, YouTube will phase out FLV (Sorenson) support and convert all videos to h.264, but until then we should trust the video quality tests and not the filesizes! For me, right now the "auto select" function of this script is broken when selects fmt=6 over fmt=18, but I hope this to be fixed soon... My €0.02 :) |
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Mindeye
Script's Author
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I think I'll add an option so users can change the script's video formats preference, as Nintendo Maniac has suggested. But it will take some time (not much), as I don't have time to work on the script right now and have some computer problems |
alala
Scriptwright
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I noticed the script was just updated, but still does not have this option. What is the status on having this implemented? I sure hope it is still in the plans as it is a very important option to me. Thanks! |
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Mindeye
Script's Author
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This last update only fixes some things that got broken and added a small feature. I don't have much time now to work on new thing for the script. But it is still in the plans ;-) |
