Question about audio quality on youtube
Jan 13, 2012 at 5:05 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 21

TheChosen0ne

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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.
 
Jan 13, 2012 at 5:46 PM Post #2 of 21
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.
 
Jan 13, 2012 at 5:50 PM Post #3 of 21
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.
 
Jan 13, 2012 at 10:49 PM Post #4 of 21
^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.
 
Jan 13, 2012 at 11:16 PM Post #6 of 21
Jan 17, 2012 at 3:12 AM Post #7 of 21
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.
 
Jan 17, 2012 at 5:40 AM Post #9 of 21
240p is actually 60 kbps, but who listens at 240p?

240p sounds pretty awesome for some chiptunes.

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.
 
Jan 17, 2012 at 3:07 PM Post #10 of 21


Quote:
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.
 
 
Jan 17, 2012 at 3:09 PM Post #11 of 21
Quote:
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.
 
Jul 5, 2013 at 11:56 PM Post #13 of 21
How to capture YouTube at Max Quality. (This is educational and not meant for "copyright Infringement")
The Goal of any qudio recording is Purity. This is my method for preserving bit perfect from the small limited audio quality from YouTube.
Things NOT to do As in 2013:
1. Do not Use YouTube to MP3 converted, or any convertion.
2. Do not use any other codec than H.264 AAC as the others codecs the audio is very poor on youtube servers.
3. Do Not capture from YouTube's browser player.
These are my rough steps:
1. Download the entire H.264 video at MAX quality, lucky best if you get 720p or "Original" which is AAC LC VBR 192kbs plus. This can be done through many methods & software, main thing directly capture the video file from youtube with no convertion.
2. DEMUX (demultiplexing not convert) the AAC LC audio track from the H.264 video file, this can be done through many method MP4Box being the most well known.
3. Repack the AAC LC file into a ".M4A" file which will provide compatibility and metadata.
4. Add Meta Data & album art into .M4A file, Finnished.
In my method at no point was the audio file from the Youtube Video converted thus no corruption occured. From my experience even using the best H.264 hardware converting the ACC LC still is degraded from the original. Remember Purity.
 
Nov 1, 2015 at 7:51 AM Post #14 of 21
  How to capture YouTube at Max Quality. (This is educational and not meant for "copyright Infringement")
The Goal of any qudio recording is Purity. This is my method for preserving bit perfect from the small limited audio quality from YouTube.
Things NOT to do As in 2013:
1. Do not Use YouTube to MP3 converted, or any convertion.
2. Do not use any other codec than H.264 AAC as the others codecs the audio is very poor on youtube servers.
3. Do Not capture from YouTube's browser player.
These are my rough steps:
1. Download the entire H.264 video at MAX quality, lucky best if you get 720p or "Original" which is AAC LC VBR 192kbs plus. This can be done through many methods & software, main thing directly capture the video file from youtube with no conversion.
2. DEMUX (demultiplexing not convert) the AAC LC audio track from the H.264 video file, this can be done through many method MP4Box being the most well known.
3. Repack the AAC LC file into a ".M4A" file which will provide compatibility and metadata.
4. Add Meta Data & album art into .M4A file, Finnished.
In my method at no point was the audio file from the Youtube Video converted thus no corruption occured. From my experience even using the best H.264 hardware converting the ACC LC still is degraded from the original. Remember Purity.

 
Thanks for this. Just wondering if you have any suggestion for downloading the entire H.264 video?
 

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