So, it is an epic question that no one has been able to fully answer with facts. Here I have the facts, straight from YouTube themselves! I will be guiding you through the export process to get the best results on YouTube streaming.

YouTube uses the H.264 codec for their videos, so you should use this codec if you want to upload to YT. YouTube states that you should use the “High” profile for exporting, as well as a Progressive scan framerate. I left it at 4.1 because that is fine for my resolution, more on that HERE. YT lists some options for bitrate, ranging from 8Mbps to 50Mbps for 1080p. They state that this will depend on the intended use and internet speeds. For me, im not too worried about quality over streaming speed. I’d rather have this raw MTB clip be easy to view. Especially since I know that the native data rate of my GoPro at this resolution is not far off of the export settings, so there would be no use setting it to 50Mbps anyway, but for other cameras this will vary!

Audio settings, contrary to popular belief, are crucial to YT exporting. Basically don’t use more than 192Kbps for Mono, and double that for Stereo. Don’t use AAC as this limits you to 160Kbps per channel. Youtube compresses this further for anything below 720p, so if you’re exporting smaller than this don’t worry about more than 256 for stereo or 128 for mono. I picked a nice 384 stereo for 192 per ear, but if I wanted a mono setup I would use 192. YT also uses a 48khz sample rate, which is basically the rate of video not music, so leave it at this for onboard sound.

Because I recorded this video at 960×1280, which is not a resolution supported by YT, I decided to pull off this little trick: I set the export resolution to 1080p, supported by YT, but still a 4:3 ratio so YT knows where to put the thumbnail. I figured that PP upscaling would look better than YT downscaling 🙂 Also select “Use Maximum Render Quality” IF you are doing any SCALING! otherwise don’t.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial! let me know if you enjoyed it, though it could be improved, or was false by leaving a comment or like below.