Before uploading your music video to YouTube:

1. Make sure that the audio on your music video is playing in Stereo, many times we have received mono audio attached to the music video because of some wrong settings on the video editing software, please double check it, mono audio will make your great sounding stereo master sound bad and lifeless.

2. Compare the audio on your music video to the original master we have provided to make sure the sound quality on your music video is just as good as your original master, degraded sound quality can be a result of wrong encoding preferences on the video editing software.     

3. Follow this guidelines to make sure you use the right upload encoding settings:

 

Recommended upload encoding settings for YouTube

Below are recommended upload encoding settings for your videos on YouTube. 

 

Container: MP4

• No Edit Lists (or the video might not get processed correctly)

• moov atom at the front of the file (Fast Start)

        
Audio codec: AAC-LC

• Channels: Stereo or Stereo + 5.1

• Sample rate 96khz or 48khz

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Video codec: H.264

• Progressive scan (no interlacing)

• High Profile

• 2 consecutive B frames

• Closed GOP. GOP of half the frame rate.

• CABAC

• Variable bitrate. No bitrate limit required, though we offer recommended bit rates below for reference

• Chroma subsampling: 4:2:0

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Frame rate

Content should be encoded and uploaded in the same frame rate it was recorded.
Common frame rates include: 24, 25, 30, 48, 50, 60 frames per second (other frame rates are also acceptable). Interlaced content should be deinterlaced before uploading. For example, 1080i60 content should be deinterlaced to 1080p30, going from 60 interlaced fields per second to 30 progressive frames per second.

 

Bitrate

The bitrates below are recommendations for uploads. Audio playback bitrate is not related to video resolution.

 

Recommended video bitrates for SDR uploads

To view new 4K uploads in 4K, use a browser or device that supports VP9.