How can I upload screen recordings to YouTube from Camtasia Mac which are 1440p

I am using an iMac 27 inch screen with a native resolution of 2560 x 1440
Do I have to lower the screen resolution of the monitor and then create a custom project size in Camtasia, if so, what would be your suggestions ?
Thanks

I am using an iMac 27 inch screen with a native resolution of 2560 x 1440
Do I have to lower the screen resolution of the monitor and then create a custom project size in Camtasia, if so, what would be your suggestions ?
Thanks
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Posted 10 months ago
Paul Middlin, Employee
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You can upload them as-is to YouTube (that is, very large) and that will work fine- YouTube will reencode it to all of the different sizes you see above.
If you think your audience is generally going to be watching it at a lower resolution, then you may choose to lower your resolution before recording. This is because taking your large (hi-res) recording, and shrinking it down to smaller screens / lower bandwidth, means losing some quality in the shrinking. So in that case, starting smaller gives people a bigger, clearer view of your content.
But, if you think people will have big screens and high bandwidth, then carry on with the high resolution; it's pretty, right?
If you think your audience is generally going to be watching it at a lower resolution, then you may choose to lower your resolution before recording. This is because taking your large (hi-res) recording, and shrinking it down to smaller screens / lower bandwidth, means losing some quality in the shrinking. So in that case, starting smaller gives people a bigger, clearer view of your content.
But, if you think people will have big screens and high bandwidth, then carry on with the high resolution; it's pretty, right?
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Thanks Paul, just to clarify, Do I have to lower the screen resolution of the monitor and then create a custom project size in Camtasia to get to 1400p ?
Paul Middlin, Employee
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If you're aiming for 1440, and that's what your screen is, then there is one more thing you may need to do. By default, Camtasia makes your project smaller (1080p I think is the current default). But, you can change this either after you record by modifying the canvas size, OR if you want to change it all the time there is a preference:


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After doing what you suggested, my test videos on Youtube were still only showing a max option of 1080p and not the 1440 so this got me wondering. After some digging around, I found the reason why 1440 was not an available option on Youtube.
The Reason...
I am quite surprised by this as I thought Apple was ahead of the game
The Reason...
Upon further inspection, I discovered that Youtube stores different kinds of video on their servers, encoded either in VP9 or the older H264 codec. Safari has no VP9 support...so it gets automatically served a H264 version from Youtube (you can verify codec by right clicking > stats for nerds). Chrome supports VP9 so gets served that version...I fired up Chrome, and sure enough, 1440 is available so it looks as though Safari is not supporting VP9 and thats why is falling back to 1080.
I am quite surprised by this as I thought Apple was ahead of the game
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I output/share/render at 3840/2160 in Camtasia. The subsequent .MP4 is uploaded to YouTube, and after 20 minutes of YT processing, all resolutions are available to viewers. 4k and 2k (1440).
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davemillman
Many years ago we all spent lots of time trying to avoid any re-encoding by YouTube, because their compressors were crap. Then they got bought by Google and Google invested lots of cash to improve YouTube's technology. Now their compressors are best-in-class for anyone except fancy cinematographers. So the workflow for best quality is:
Paul Middlin, Employee