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Topic: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube? (Read 14170 times) previous topic - next topic
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How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

How to obtain  true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Is it even possible to post and download audio on YouTube without it being *adjusted* to be 16/44 or less?

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #1
AFAIK Youtube transcodes everything to 44/48k lossy, it could be aac, vorbis or opus.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #2
While it is only a small sample, a few random items of the audio from various music videos, everything I've downloaded shows up as 128kbps/44.1kHz AAC, according to MediaInfo. I don't select those parameters for the download, just 'audio only' m4a.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #3
The video's I've stream ripped were all 128 kbps as well.  Some videos have HD quality though.  Maybe the audio stream is upgraded too?
JXL

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #4
In my experience, 128kbps / 44.1 or 48 kHz is the current Youtube maximum for AAC. (It used to be 192kbps.) Opus is maximum 160kbps, Ogg 128kbps. 
If you're a Youtube content ID partner, they will accept uploaded FLAC or WAV audio. 16/44.1 preferred, but 48 or 96 is accepted at 16(preferred) or 24 bit. (It is converted to AAC / OPUS / OGG for viewing by other than the uploader.)
For the rest, the recommended audio upload format is AAC, 48 or 96 KHz sample rate. They don't specify bit depth, just bitrate for stereo 384kbps. Hopefully they're smart enough not to transcode if you upload at AAC 128kbps 44/1 or 48 KHz.
Regards,
   Don Hills
"People hear what they see." - Doris Day

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #5
Quote
If you're a Youtube content ID partner, they will accept uploaded FLAC or WAV audio
I'm just a normal Youtube user and I was able to upload FLAC audio back in 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3OOgcqm0Yk
They haven't transcoded it to Opus yet. Maybe it needs certain amount of views?

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #6
720p multiplexed a/v streams are still available. The easiest to get their URL is via SMPlayer. Sometimes the audio is 128 kbit, and sometimes it is still 192 kbit (reduced to 16-bit before transcoding). I don't know what the current conditions for either are. I no longer upload to the site, but at one time it used to be that if lossless was uploaded then it got the higher bitrate. I doubt it is still so, because long let's plays are also 192 kbit/s.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #7
The uploads are encoded to different formats at different bitrates. Some videos have opus, but not all. They also use loudness equalization during playback, Merzbow is an excellent example as it is one of the loudest albums in the world.

https://youtu.be/AguPH0XBxdw

About lossless formats during upload, youtube at least accepts video as camstudio lossless codec for video and wav in avi/mkv container, there should be other options as well.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #8
It seems to me that some tools identify as "192" streams are actually 128. Not sure if it is their fault or youtube's.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #9
Before YouTube saved the video and audio streams separately the quality of the audio track was based on the resolution of the uploaded video track. For example to get the audio transcoded to 192Kbps you required at least a 720p resolution video track.
Now that they use DASH the audio tracks do not rely on the video resolution.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #10
Quote
If you're a Youtube content ID partner, they will accept uploaded FLAC or WAV audio
I'm just a normal Youtube user and I was able to upload FLAC audio back in 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3OOgcqm0Yk
They haven't transcoded it to Opus yet. Maybe it needs certain amount of views?

They encode to vp9/opus if the channel is popular, or if the video gets popular (that's when it gets over a certain number of views in a single day.)
I remember some post in reddit suggesting they would eventually use vp9/opus for all new uploads at 1080p or more regardless of popularity.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #11
My first thought is that I don't care what they accept, I care about what they deliver.

If YouTube or similar services lose quality, where does it happen and is any of it under the viewer/listener's control?

My test system uses a M-Audio 24/192 running at 96 KHz sampling looped back to itself. The Audio Rightmark program finds about 100 dB dynamc range and response within 0.1 dB over the normal range, and well above it.  It can definitely tell the difference between high sample rates, high dynamic range, and vin ordinaire.

I've done one set of tests where I looked at the web browser as a potential source of quality loss. I was not disappointed, in that my 24/96 test files were obviously downsampled to more like 16/44 by the current release of Chrome running under Win 7/32.

The next easiest thing was to search YouTube for uploaded test files, things with page names that suggest pure tones. I  downloaded them to see how they look. Again I was not disappointed in that while frequency response wasn't too badly smashed below 20 KHz, dynamic range was way less than RedBook, on the order of 70 dB in most cases.

The consequences of this sort of thing to the high rez audio and other snake oil demonstrations seems pretty grim. There ain't no such thing as real 24/96 audio on YouTube, it seems. If someone seems to claim otherwise, they are either ignorant or claiming falsely, or lying.

Any other evidence or insights will be welcomed.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #12
I think youtube will never provide untranscoded sources for free and anonymous download. The medium bitrate policy should be a copyright concern.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #13
The consequences of this sort of thing to the high rez audio and other snake oil demonstrations seems pretty grim. There ain't no such thing as real 24/96 audio on YouTube, it seems. If someone seems to claim otherwise, they are either ignorant or claiming falsely, or lying.
This is  a list of formats available for this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w5B1Ne-fy4
It's new, from a channel that gets viewers by the millions so it's uploads get transcoded to all available formats

Code: [Select]
[info] Available formats for 2w5B1Ne-fy4:
format code  extension  resolution note
139          m4a        audio only DASH audio   49k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.5@ 48k (22050Hz), 3.46MiB
249          webm       audio only DASH audio   57k , opus @ 50k, 3.75MiB
250          webm       audio only DASH audio   77k , opus @ 70k, 5.34MiB
171          webm       audio only DASH audio  121k , vorbis@128k, 8.22MiB
140          m4a        audio only DASH audio  128k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@128k (44100Hz), 9.23MiB
251          webm       audio only DASH audio  143k , opus @160k, 9.52MiB
17           3gp        176x144    small , mp4v.20.3, mp4a.40.2@ 24k
36           3gp        320x180    small , mp4v.20.3, mp4a.40.2
43           webm       640x360    medium , vp8.0, vorbis@128k
18           mp4        640x360    medium , avc1.42001E, mp4a.40.2@ 96k
22           mp4        1280x720   hd720 , avc1.64001F, mp4a.40.2@192k (best)

So this is the best all videos can get transcoded to: opus @160kbps, or aac@192kbps.... all of them vbr, so the actual bitrate changes from one video to another.

Although you can upload flac (and pcm) in hi-res, you don't get hi-res when playing the video, and the original upload is not available to anybody else but google.


Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #14
This is  a list of formats available for this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w5B1Ne-fy4
It's new, from a channel that gets viewers by the millions so it's uploads get transcoded to all available formats

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So this is the best all videos can get transcoded to: opus @160kbps, or aac@192kbps.... all of them vbr, so the actual bitrate changes from one video to another.

Although you can upload flac (and pcm) in hi-res, you don't get hi-res when playing the video, and the original upload is not available to anybody else but google.

And this is what you get on a 480p video with less than 10 views on a really small channel:
Code: [Select]
format code  extension  resolution note
139          m4a        audio only DASH audio   51k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.5@ 48k (22050Hz)
140          m4a        audio only DASH audio  130k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@128k (44100Hz)
160          mp4        192x144    DASH video  108k , avc1.4d400b, 30fps, video only
133          mp4        320x240    DASH video  242k , avc1.4d400c, 30fps, video only
134          mp4        480x360    DASH video  554k , avc1.4d401e, 30fps, video only
135          mp4        640x480    DASH video 1025k , avc1.4d401e, 30fps, video only
17           3gp        176x144    small , mp4v.20.3, mp4a.40.2@ 24k
36           3gp        320x240    small , mp4v.20.3, mp4a.40.2
18           mp4        480x360    medium , avc1.42001E, mp4a.40.2@ 96k
43           webm       640x360    medium , vp8.0, vorbis@128k (best)
128kbps AAC and Vorbis.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #15
Does it really related to number of views? I couldn't find anything higher than 128kbps in this link (1,077,944 views). Can someone try this video?

https://youtu.be/xBfBYfPNXqE

The Final Fantasy video in my other post has less than 10000 views and it has 162kbps opus.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #16
Code: [Select]
[info] Available formats for 2w5B1Ne-fy4:
22           mp4        1280x720   hd720 , avc1.64001F, mp4a.40.2@192k (best)
Did you mean the 720p muxed mp4 has 192kbps aac? It says 126kbps at my side. Can someone recheck it?
[edit] Looks like Porcus was right. Then the best bitrate at this moment should be ~160kbps opus.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #17
I'm just a normal Youtube user and I was able to upload FLAC audio back in 2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3OOgcqm0Yk
They haven't transcoded it to Opus yet. Maybe it needs certain amount of views?
On the other hand, there are 192kbps AAC.

About 128/192 kbps in 720p video:
Every Youtube quality is associated there with internal integer parameter called 'itag'. Streams with the same itag have generally the same quality (though there can be fluctuations in both directions *). 720p H264 + AAC video has itag 22. It used to have 192kbps in the past. But in the spring of 2016, they began to use 128kbps AAC for it. Some old videos were changed to 128kbps as well, but some not (like in the above example). And programs/plugins, that rely only on itag number, show either 192 or 128 kbps for all such videos.

* - (about 'fluctuations') for example, although Vorbis itag 171 is usually 128kbps, it can be even 176 kbps. Or that 160 kbps Opus can be higher (205 kbps) or lower (102 kbps). Though that could be eventually 'fixed' - an other 207kbps Opus example that I had now has 128kpbs Opus.

Although you can upload flac (and pcm) in hi-res, you don't get hi-res when playing the video, and the original upload is not available to anybody else but google.
To Google and you. It should be possible to get original video back using Google Takeout (never tried that though).
To others there is only transcoded quality. Not necessary due to copyright concerns. They are really obsessed by bandwidth reduction, to deliver "hd" quality to more people.

And more info to this quality party. Underrated area imo. With spatial audio there came 4.0 (four channels) 192 - 256 kbps (again, both use the same itag) 48000Hz Vorbis. And Opus (of the same quality). And 5.1 AAC 48000Hz 256kbps.
Aaand even before spatial audio, in the distant autumn 2015, there started to appear 5.1 AAC 48000Hz 384 and 192kbps.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #18
In Acoustic Guitar I can see 125 kbit/s audio, which is the reduced rate. The bitrates are actually 192 and 125 abr, as reported by, for example, ffdshow, which shows the instantanenous and average readings. Some new videos do still use the higher rate, and there doesn't seem to be any clear reason why one should get the higher, and another the lower. For example, 125 kbit/s, 192 kbit/s, 192 kbit/s. I noticed that one video changed from 192 down to 125 today. Maybe there is a mixture of quality on the YouTube network, and it depends on where the video happens to be served from.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #19
720p H264 + AAC video has itag 22. It used to have 192kbps in the past. But in the spring of 2016, they began to use 128kbps AAC for it
New videos (2017) use 192kbps AAC on itag 22.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #20
So the itag and some analysis tools are obviously unreliable. I'd rather use my pathetic coding skill to write a calculator (attached) to validate the real bitrate based on file size. foobar and MediaInfo should be reliable in my observation.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #21
New videos (2017) use 192kbps AAC on itag 22.
Well, I've took 20 videos from this search (search for '2017' with filters 'HD' and 'Video' turned on). They all published in 2017, have VP9/Opus streams and view count 7K-5M. None of them has 192kbps. 19 have 128kbps for itag 22 and one 96 (in that case it seems that original video just has poor audio quality).

For example, 125 kbit/s, 192 kbit/s, 192 kbit/s. I noticed that one video changed from 192 down to 125 today. Maybe there is a mixture of quality on the YouTube network, and it depends on where the video happens to be served from.
Interesting. So after they started using 128kbps, there is still a chance to have 192 kbps at some point.

Here is another silly theory. For me, second video from your example now does show only 128kbps. And full set of VP9/Opus streams. All 192kbps videos in this thread actually don't have VP9/Opus streams. So let's take a look on videos that don't have VP9/Opus.

I've just searched for hd videos uploaded today. From 20 results there was only one containing VP9/Opus. And 14 (!) of them had 192kbps for itag 22.

So, maybe at initial processing there is a chance to have 192kbps. And maybe at reprocessing (to make full set of qualities, including VP9/Opus) existing qualities are also getting reprocessed. And at this time, itag 22 gets 128kbps (btw, it's interesting to check what happens with video bitrate). So itag 22 is like an alternative for VP9 + 160kbps Opus, until this quality is not produced. (Thinking further, it might be always producing 192kbps due to this reason. And videos that dodn't have it, just originally don't have good enough audio quality to make 192kbps AAC out of it).

Additional evidence. On Youtube, streams within MP4 container have 'creation_time' tag. And for that clip, which just switched to 128kbps, itag 22 has creation_time '2017-06-23T02:54:25.000000Z'. Aha! That was after @j7n comment.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #22
I see that the video quality gets nearly halved as well when the audio stream changes, which is more disappointing. I downloaded the same moderately popular Let's Play video title with 500 views on the day it came out and a day after that. Maybe one a video surpasses certain popularity level it gets reduced in quality. If I trust the times reported by Media Info, the smaller file was encoded 6 hours later.

Video bitrate: 1566 kbit (515 MB) vs 820 kbit (278 MB). On the plus side, the smaller video now uses B-frames. Itag 22 stream used to have the optimal quality, in bits per pixel, low decoding complexity and good player compatibility. Google clearly is concerned with bandwidth...

https://pastebin.com/AFdik9st

Edit: I agree with 3dyd.

Re: How to obtain true hi rez audio via YouTube?

Reply #23
Since the thread has moved to discussing which perceptual coders running at which modest bitrates are being used by YouTube, it seems clear that no way is YouTube a reasonable medium for materials that would be used in listening tests related to so-called high resolution audio.

I'm continuing to study the matter, but it seems that in general video distribution format audio is generally based on good modern perceptual coders running at reasonable data rates.

On the one hand they should not be problematical for people who want good sound quality, but on the other hand they  seem to fatal to the comfort of most Placebophiles whose oft-stated doctrine is "Everything Matters".

Interesting factoid:  The before and after musical selections in this  video apparently posted by Synergistic research has a broad band level change in the "Before" and "after" segments: https://youtu.be/LlF-uP3lM44

The real irony is that the 5 dB louder passage is the segment that adds a goodly number of what are purported to be acoustic reflection treatments and noise reducers. ????????????????

Here is an interesting post. Here we have Placebophiles claiming to be disappointed by hearing no differences, when there is a good possibility that level differences on the order of 5 dB were being added and removed.

https://www.computeraudiophile.com/forums/topic/31577-synergistic-research-scam/