Hello,
i'd like to share information about improved sound quality of Youtube clips in new WebM format.
Reason, why i put it into this subforum, is quite lot of comments regarding youtube amp reviews and well-deserved discussion about that.
One of biggest issues with Youtube clips was poor quality of their AAC audio codec - it usually destroyed transients, blurred bass localisation and had a lot of nasty artifacts and modulation. So it was quite hard to make demo, which sounds as good as on other video sharing services (like Vimeo). Degradation is more precieved when uploading content with higher quality (eg. less noisy, full frequency response to lows, proper levels), than some phone/webcam stuff or clips recorded at noisy rooms. It could be slightly improved using some band limiting (cutting low and high frequencies), but never good.
All mentioned things still applies if you watch clips in H.264/AAC using Flash player. But during last year, Youtube introduced experimental HTML5 mode of their site, which use Google's own WebM format by default. For some clips it is night and day difference.
It can be activated on this page
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.
From that moment all clips are played in HTML5 player (without Flash) and streamed in WebM format.
And then try few clips (ideally set one browser to HTML5 and second leave at standard flash format and put your headphones on
Ed Friedland's demos:
YouTube - Genz Benz Shuttle Max 9.2 YouTube - Genz Benz Streamliner 900
Tech21 demo:
YouTube - Tech 21 VT Bass - SansAmp Character Series
Ken Jung's demo:
YouTube - Genz Benz Streamliner 900, Audiokinesis Thunderchild 112, Alleva-Coppolo LM
Jollybeggars demo:
YouTube - Genz Benz Streamliner 900 Jam w/ Fender Precision & Jazz
Remarks:
- you'll need supported browser - my best experience is with Google Chrome or Firefox 4, which could do WebM format natively.
- it applies only to clips uploaded from cca Q4 of 2010 (all older clips are only recoded to WebM by Google - one lossy format to another, so it has actually worse quality then original uploads)
- HTML5 player works only on standard clip pages (the white ones). That means no clips embeeded on other webpages, no channel or user pages (default the grey ones).
You'll need to open individual youtube page for clip.
- settings is stored in browser cookie, so it needs to be enabled per-browser basis
- full screen button maximizes video to browser windows, for real full screen playback you'll need to use also full screen function in your browser (usually F11 key)
Tech talk:
Reason for this is ancient version of opensource FAAC library for AAC audio encoding used by Google. AAC codec by itself is usually better at given bitrate, than Vorbis codec used at WebM, but this implementation (comparing to NeroAAC or iTunes) is one of worst. Youtube WebM clips uses Vorbis at 96kbit at "360p" quality settings and 192kbit at "720p" HD settings, later is for most people indistinguishable to CD.
Best regards
Michal
