Solved Render quality is excellent, YouTube quality is terrible.

Hello again. I honestly don't know where else to turn because it is apparently just me who is having issues. First off let me show my settings:


Here is an image of the source material:


Here is the rendered video output:


Here is what it looks like on YouTube:




As you can see it is a complete dumpster fire. It is just one big blurry mess even at high bitrate. Any recommendations on what to do? I have resampling disabled for this render also.

It doesn't look that bad to me on YouTube - honestly.
Every single video that is uploaded to YouTube is re-rendered with a high compression algorithm, so they can fit more videos on each server. Otherwise YT could not afford to host videos at all.

The problem with your video is the actual content.
The colour green and all those extremely fast moving squares in Minecraft, are one of the most difficult things to encode/compress. Because of how compression works, each frame is divided into squares and is encoded using the least amount of data possible. Unfortunately YouTube is not a perfect environment. Your settings in Movie Studio are perfect.

Well compare mine to this:


That video is vastly superior to what mine looks like on YouTube. Around 1 minute in he is panning the camera around on the terrain. Notice how much detail there is.

Ask this person what their workflow is, which exact programs they are using and which exact render/export settings they use.
It is impossible to compare to different videos unless you know precisely what settings they used.
If you can get that information, then you will have something to further investigate.

I watched your vid in HD and could hardly tell a difference between your quality and Hypnotizd's. Yours is right up there with MindCrack, Hermitcraft, or anyone else.

While there are some similarities, such as the blur on the brown dirt texture, the clarity of his videos is superior. I am clearly doing something wrong with the encoding.
(make sure you view the image at the actual size and not just this little thumb - direct link here: i.imgur.com/Z8uF0Fr.jpg ).

I am clearly doing something wrong with the encoding

You are not doing something wrong, so get that idea out of your head.

This other person that you are comparing your videos to, is most likely using a different program or group of programs, and different settings. Which means he is using a different workflow to what you are using, which is creating a different result.

As I said to you in a previous message, you need to ask this person what their exact workflow is and what exact settings they are using.
My guess is that they may be using 2 different programs and using a very complicated workflow.
Some Sony Vegas Pro users on the official Sony Vegas Pro Forum , use a combination of Vegas Pro and Handbrake .

If you search "handbrake" on this forum, you will find a large number of discussions about all different types of rendering workflows.
Personally I have never bothered getting into this, because the Handbrake workflow is very complicated and results vary between different users on different computers. From what I have read, Handbrake uses a slightly different encoder which makes certain types of video look better, yet other types of video are no different to what Vegas Pro can output. Do some power searchers on this forum and ask questions there, if you want to go deeper with this topic.

Some extra information for Sinxar which I forgot to mention before - sorry

In your original message you showed your Custom Settings.
There are a few things to check and experiment with.

1. What is the exact Frame Rate of your screen recording ?
When people talk about 60 fps video, most of the time it is actually 59.94 fps
If you click on top of your video in the Project Media tab, there is a readout below which will tell you the precise Frame Rate.
Make sure your Project Properties and Custom Render Settings are set to the exact same frame rate. If that is actually 59.94, make sure to set as 59.94

2. Turn on de-blocking filter.
This setting does exactly what it sounds like. It can help smooth out areas like blue sky, which tend to go blocky due to compression.

3. Turn on Two Pass rendering next to Variable bit rate.
This does two passes of your video when rendering for a high quality file. It will also double the render time and often makes no noticeable difference, although it is worth trying.

The problem isn't with the quality of the output from Movie Studio Platinium. The output is beautiful and perfect in every way. Just like I was sitting there playing the game.

The problem is with Youtube and how it re-encodes the uploaded video. There are apparently some specific settings that allow minimal reprocessing. Using the recommended settings is impossible because they are not exposed in Movie Studio. I have attempted to use an h.264 encoder but was very unhappy with the quality of the output.

Is exporting uncompressed (usually in the 100's of GB range @ 480p 30fps from past experiences, afraid to try uncompressed 1080p 60FPS As I only have a few TB of storage) then using Handbrake really the only way to gain access to these encoding options?

I would not recommend anyone to render un-compressed video - the file size is absolutely insane.
I have read some of the forum threads about Vegas Pro/Handbrake workflows and it seems like everyone just ends up talking round and round in circles with too many complicated if's, but's and maybe's. For that reason I have never bothered wasting time and energy on it.

I can't advise you any further on Handbrake because I don't use it - that's my honest and simple answer.