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Question about audio quality on youtube

post #1 of 12
1/13/12 at 2:05am
Thread Starter 

I heard that if you download a youtube video in 1080p/720p then use a converter to convert it into a 320 kbps mp3 or whichever format then that will give you a high quality song but some other dude said getting videos off of youtube then converting them will make the quality of the song even worse...So who is right? I'm only doing this cause sometimes youtube artists do cover songs and they don't provide d/l link whether its a for itunes or a free d/l link so the only way to get the song is doing this method.

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post #2 of 12
1/13/12 at 2:46pm

It's always a bit worse to convert something from one lossy format to another. That being said, I find that often even just 480p quality is good enough, even if it's not 320kbps. If you try mp3ornot.com, you will find that it's very hard to tell the difference with that compared to 128kbps files.

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post #3 of 12
1/13/12 at 2:50pm

Everything under 720p is encoded at 128 kbps, regardless of what the original file was (so if the original was lossy, you're getting bonus damage). 720p and 1080p are encoded at 152 kbps average variable bitrate, and can sound considerably better. Downloading and then re-encoding again will only further damage the sound, no matter what bitrate you choose. You can't improve audio by encoding it at a higher bitrate, only damage it further.

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post #4 of 12
1/13/12 at 7:49pm

^What your saying sounds correct, but could you tell me where you got that information from? I guess it would be even more than looking up the FLV codec since Youtube probably does some post-processing as well, no matter how the original file was made.


Edited by stevenswall - 2/13/12 at 12:29pm
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post #5 of 12
1/13/12 at 8:10pm

http://www.h3xed.com/web-and-internet/youtube-audio-quality-bitrate-240p-360p-480p-720p-1080p

 

240p is actually 60 kbps, but who listens at 240p?

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post #6 of 12
1/13/12 at 8:16pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Head Injury View Post

http://www.h3xed.com/web-and-internet/youtube-audio-quality-bitrate-240p-360p-480p-720p-1080p

 

240p is actually 60 kbps, but who listens at 240p?



Beats users.

 

*takes off pompous audiophile hat*

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post #7 of 12
1/17/12 at 12:12am
Thread Starter 

Ok lets say someone downloads some mp3s illegally on a forum that shares this kind of stuff...How would this person know if it was from the original source or if it was converted/edited?  Because if this person right click on "properties" then look at the birate it would be 320kbps but like you guys said converting it would damage the song quality.


Edited by TheChosen0ne - 1/17/12 at 12:16am
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post #8 of 12
1/17/12 at 12:13am
Thread Starter 

double post


Edited by TheChosen0ne - 1/17/12 at 12:16am
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post #9 of 12
1/17/12 at 2:40am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Head Injury View Post

240p is actually 60 kbps, but who listens at 240p?
240p sounds pretty awesome for some chiptunes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheChosen0ne View Post

Ok lets say someone downloads some mp3s illegally on a forum that shares this kind of stuff...How would this person know if it was from the original source or if it was converted/edited?  Because if this person right click on "properties" then look at the birate it would be 320kbps but like you guys said converting it would damage the song quality.
You'd have to look at a spectrogram using a program like this: http://spectro.enpts.com/index.php

I imagine YouTube quality would be so bad that most high frequencies will be completely gone. Transcoding it to lossy again will just kill the quality. Any lossy to lossy transcode will drop the quality.
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post #10 of 12
1/17/12 at 12:07pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheChosen0ne View Post

Ok lets say someone downloads some mp3s illegally on a forum that shares this kind of stuff...How would this person know if it was from the original source or if it was converted/edited?  Because if this person right click on "properties" then look at the birate it would be 320kbps but like you guys said converting it would damage the song quality.


The sound quality should be self-evident. Try comparing it with some moderately good files you have. There should be a noticeable difference.

 

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post #11 of 12
1/17/12 at 12:09pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by 3rdear View Post

The sound quality should be self-evident. Try comparing it with some moderately good files you have. There should be a noticeable difference.


It's often very hard to tell what bitrate a file is without a higher bitrate version of the same mastering to compare. There is no telling what the recording is supposed to sound like. With very low bitrates there will be noticeable artifacts that are typically only in low bitrate files, but those require prior knowledge on what artifacts sound like to really be noticeable or offensive.

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post #12 of 12
1/17/12 at 12:57pm

Whenever I encountered files like that, they sounded slightly muffled/veiled, but, they might have been poor rips to begin with.

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