… for Codecs & Media

Tip #455: Audio Compression Settings for YouTube

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

YouTube always recompresses media, so send it a larger-than-normal file.

Last week, in Tip #451, I presented compression settings for audio you were posting for a podcast. YouTube and other social media settings are different, however. Here’s what you need to know.

YouTube, and other social media services, always recompress your data. This is necessary to support all the different playback devices, software and codecs in the real world.

If you send YouTube a perfectly compressed file, it will still recompress it – because it has to convert it to all these different codecs. In doing so, because there is not enough data, it will damage the quality of your audio.

To prevent this, we need to create a “mezzanine,” or middle, compression file so that when YouTube recompresses the file it has some bits it can throw away. MP3 is an excellent choice for audio-only files. AAC, which is part of H.264 compression, is a good choice when you are compressing audio with video.

Here are the settings:

EXTRA CREDIT

Tip #458 explains video compression settings for YouTube