Topic: Youtube sound quality

[philipus]

Hello everyone

I'm posting this here as it said this subforum is also about streaming. I'm wondering about Youtube's sound quality. I've seen different information about this online, for instance that it varies with the image quality of the stream. Does anyone know if this is true and if Youtube streams in let's say "CD" quality or higher/lower?

Cheers and thank you in advance

[rocksuitcase]

For music listening, the YouTube Music app has settings for higher audio quality under "Settings > Playback". According to their documentation, this is "Upper bound of 256kbps AAC & OPUS":

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item

Seems lo Fi

[morst]

You can upload CD or better quality audio, and YT reduces to lossy in every resolution.
Top resolution for playback or download is relatively high lossy bit rate to where it doesn't bother me, but my hearing is shot above 10k last I checked.

[philipus]

Thank you for your replies. I'm wondering about YouTube in comparison with for instance Vimeo when uploading content. It seems Youtube cares very little about audio quality.

[nassau73]

The other question is "why am I uploading in the first place"?

If you are doing it for yourself, then the highest quality might be important to you.

If you are wanting just the masses to see/hear your stuff - this response might come into play:

YouTube has significantly higher viewership than Vimeo, with
over 2.6 billion monthly active users compared to Vimeo’s roughly 260–300 million.
YouTube functions as a massive, public-facing search engine (second only to Google) designed for broad reach,
whereas Vimeo acts as a curated, high-quality, ad-free platform focused on creative professionals.

[dyneq]

If you desire the best possible quality on YT, upload as FLAC (to avoid recompression of already compressed audio). They recommend 24/48, although I doubt anyone could discern from 16/44 in ABX testing.

Resulting codec will be Opus (default) for WebM containers and AAC-LC for MP4 containers at bitrates that are transparent to all but those with golden ears. HandBrake is able to create WebM containers with FLAC audio.

Make sure to disable 'Stable Volume' (DRC) during playback unless you're into that ;^)

[anodyne33]

gosh, everything I've heard taken from youtube and played on a car stereo has been so horrible. not just compressed but they're breaking new ground on hi pass/lo pass.

I can't speak for what you *can* do with it and hey, it's works for me on the bluetooth speaker out on the porch.

[Thelonious]

I too find YouTube sound quality unsatisfying. My understanding is that you get a higher bit rate if you select a higher video quality but it is always lossy.

I love some of the content that is available on YouTube but when streaming a concert through my stereo it sounds quite poor. It is, as was said, fine for Bluetooth speakers/headphones on the porch.

I suppose that >95% of people are listening on Bluetooth headphones, or their device speaker, so it probably makes sense in that context.

[jagraham]

Glad to have seen this thread as I was wondering about this. I've recently gotten interested in backing up full concerts from YT to watch offline. I've had some luck with a Program called Parabolic to convert streams to files. The options for audio are FLAC/WAV/OPUS/AAC/MP4A/MP3 and for video VP9, AV1, H.264 (AVC) and H.265 (HEVC). Should I be using the FLAC option even knowing the source is not lossless? For video I'm using VP9 because AV1 seemed a little off sync, and I don't know what the other choices are. I've gotten a couple good shows where I was happy with the quality, I'm just wondering if these are the best options.

[morst]

Glad to have seen this thread as I was wondering about this. I've recently gotten interested in backing up full concerts from YT to watch offline. I've had some luck with a Program called Parabolic to convert streams to files. The options for audio are FLAC/WAV/OPUS/AAC/MP4A/MP3 and for video VP9, AV1, H.264 (AVC) and H.265 (HEVC). Should I be using the FLAC option even knowing the source is not lossless? For video I'm using VP9 because AV1 seemed a little off sync, and I don't know what the other choices are. I've gotten a couple good shows where I was happy with the quality, I'm just wondering if these are the best options.

Does it have an "automatic, best quality" setting?
Different videos have different attributes and nothing you download from YT is lossless...

[jagraham]

Glad to have seen this thread as I was wondering about this. I've recently gotten interested in backing up full concerts from YT to watch offline. I've had some luck with a Program called Parabolic to convert streams to files. The options for audio are FLAC/WAV/OPUS/AAC/MP4A/MP3 and for video VP9, AV1, H.264 (AVC) and H.265 (HEVC). Should I be using the FLAC option even knowing the source is not lossless? For video I'm using VP9 because AV1 seemed a little off sync, and I don't know what the other choices are. I've gotten a couple good shows where I was happy with the quality, I'm just wondering if these are the best options.

Does it have an "automatic, best quality" setting?
Different videos have different attributes and nothing you download from YT is lossless...

"Any" is an option on each but it doesn't specify if that is best. I think I need to find a plugin or something that can provide the videos correct resolution and bit rate.