Uncompressed audio option in H.264 ????

Alright I am back, and this is what I have found.

When it comes to streaming, YouTube has the best sound quality of all other platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music. This is because they are the only company utilizing the codec OPUS.

OPUS was developed a few years ago, replacing the great Vorbis. Now why is this important? This is the key to making your YouTube uploads sounding great. If you notice YouTube topic channels sound the best. Now I have my own music that I upload to my channel, and I also like to archive obscure vinyl and other formats. I want my listeners to hear by far the best sound when they view my channel.

It does not have to do with the compression in your video editing software, I repeat it does not have to do with H264. H.264 can sound really great, and AAC 192KPBS is more than adequate for most listeners on YouTube.

The problem is the resolution of your video. If you upload a 1080P video to YouTube, Google is going to encode the audio in your video in MP4. This is a bad mistake, because it is taking an already compressed AAC audio file, and compressing it down even further. This is going to sound bad and not the result you want.

The trick is to upload your file at a resolution of 1440P not 1080P. Now Google will always stream your video in VP9 video and OPUS audio in a WEBM compartment even if you stream @ 480P.  This does not work on Safari, but all other browsers including the YouTube app on Android will stream your video in OPUS by default.

I have included links to an H264 compressed file I uploaded to YouTube in 1440P resolution, side by side with the MP4 upload. I was not expecting that big of a difference, you cannot even compare. Make sure you watch them on Chrome or Firefox on a desktop computer, or Android app with high resolution enabled. Unfortunately Apple does not support VP9, not compatible on iPhone.

MP4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFUDqCohxLQ

OPUS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wad7K4iYDT4

I have also noticed that H264 may sound even better than uploading a giant uncompressed file to YouTube which is not recommended and will hog their servers. Also note your video will stream in MP4 for the first day and then it will switch over to OPUS. Hopefully Google does not end this loophole, because other than that you have to be a big channel for a 1080P upload to be encoded in VP9. I'm hoping this helps out anyone out there, took me a long time to figure this out.

Old thread, but this the exact dilemma I have been experiencing. I upload much of my own music to YouTube in H264, and not so much video but my audio sounds drastically more compressed when I listen to the original file.

The reason for this is when you upload a lossy file, YouTube is transcoding a lossy format to another lossy format.

I actually have a clip uploaded to my channel that sounds distorted, and this week I am going to work on exporting an uncompressed 10bit file and putting it into my own compressor to DNxHD.

I am going to do the blind test and will post on here my side by side comparison in a few weeks.

Wow; all news to me. Thank you for that.

And so the dilemma now is... seeing that YouTube actually recommends 24 Bit 44.1 WAV as the audio (for music videos) - how best to upload a video to YouTube with 24 Bit 44.1 uncompressed audio?

If I want to stay using H.264 - I have no choice but use QuickTime (if I want 24 bit audio). Otherwise, if I want to use H.264, I have no choice but to compress the audio (ouch!).

Link: Encoding specifications for music videos - YouTube Help

*note 24 bit WAV.

As above - you can export uncompressed audio using H264 codec - as long as format is QuickTime. Or am I missing something?

See screenshot:

Only issue now is - I just tried an export and..... silence!!! Why am I not getting any audio at all? Exporting in another format; the audio is there - but not in the export setting I need (H264 but with uncompressed audio...)

Any tips or advice?

To achieve this, you would have export the video and audio separately and use a third-party muxer to combine the two into one file.

I am  afraid the answer is: no way.