Compressor Settings for YouTube

To be honest, I have never seen any difference in quality between Pro Res 422 and Mp4 when playing on a computer screen. However, there are a lot more Independent frames in Pro Res so the quality would be technically better because no frames lost through the compression algorithm. It also has a much higher bitratre than Mp4, so playing more bits per second, and hence the much larger file size and better quality. I suppose if you played Pro Res 422 on a very large screen, or examined the footage frame by frame in side by side comparison with Mp4, you would see some quality difference. Basically Pro Res 422 is a better editing format if you have heavy editing to do. If file size is an issue, like uploading to the internet, then you would be better off with a more compressed format like Mp4. If the footage is going to be played on a computer screen I would see no benefit to using Pro Res 422. In the last analysis it is your call as to what format to use for your purposes.

-- Rich

Regarding your microscope video, the format is Mpeg-2. The resolution is 1280 x 720 which is low hi-def. So it would be safe to "convert" the file to HD 720p because it is already that. You could bump it up to 1080p, but sometimes upscaling actually yields worse results. However, you do not want the Mpeg-2 format because it will not work in iMovie. Mpeg-2 is a highly compressed delivery format not intended for editing. It is what is used for commercial DVDs that will be viewed but not edited.

Since you will be editing, you would want an editing format depending upon how complicated the editing will be. As for what format to use, that would depend upon your intended purpose. For example, if you would be uploading to a website like You Tube you might want a more compressed format, like Mp4. If you are going to do a lot of finite editing, you would want something like Pro Res 422, that would give you a bit better quality although a 4x larger file size and take up much more space. But uploading to the internet might be awkward and time consuming with such a large file.

I would think that an eye surgery video wouldn't require a lot of color editing and finite effects. Others may opine differently, but I would suggest H.264, Mp4/AAC at 720p. That is regarded as a delivery format rather than an editing format, but I have found it very editable for almost every purpose. Mp4 is probably the most widely compatible format that will play on any device with good quality. It will work fine on You Tube. Working with a duplicate, try a test movie with Mp4 and see if the result satisfies your requrements. You can also try Pro Res 422 and see if you like it better. I'm pretty sure that You Tube accepts Pro Res 422, but you should go on You Tubes website to check what formats that it accepts.

-- Rich