I'm trying to create an HDTV quality training aid which I presume is exactly 1920x1080 and I do this with a single image of that resolution by including it as a clip in an initial project and extending the time as desired. The image made with gimp is crisp and clear but I just can't get an identical result in the video. It's for a learning aid such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlwoDHS6370 which is a collection of short videos brought into a project after being painstakingly made. I don't want any faded, washed out or blurred fine print. Is there a way to do this, and how exactly? I find the save-as format options not very clear, would like ione that's like ffmpeg's 'samequality' or whatever it's called, applied strictly to resolution too. Thanks

If your distibution channel is Youtube, you'll need to live with what they offer. When you upload a clip, they will always recode it to their standards.
Kdenlive can render to lossless formats, but Youtube won't keep them.

BTW, the video you linked is available at max 480p, you can get at least 720p on YT, check the upload options.

First, make sure you are using a 1920x1080 project profile, for example "HD 1080i 25 fps". (choose interlacing and framerate depending on what output format you want). Then when you render, choose for example an MPEG-4 profile that should give you a good result (you can increase the video bitrate if you are not satisfied with quality). Maybe you tried rendering to HDV (which seems a logical choice), but the HDV formats are in fact using a 1440x1080 resolution that is then scaled to full HD - 1920x1080 which might cause the issue you describe.

Marko & j-b-m thank you both, I was somehow under the impression that youtube was offering full HD which I presumed to mean 1920x1080. I'll work on the suggested details, up till now I was using mpeg-2 because mpeg-4 gave no sound played in my BD deck. I'll have to look into that too. One difficulty is that I have to launch an older version of suse (11.4) each time I want to use kdenlive as otherwise it just crashes on 'Render'.

I've heard that they even support 4K now, but 1080 is certainly supported:

http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/static.py?hl=en&topic=1728573&guide=1728585&page=guide.cs

although I don't remember ever seeing any clip available at 1080?

Yes, I was using HDV, all the format alpha descriptors should also include the exact resolution.

So have you solved this now? I don't understand your last comment about 'alpha descriptors'? As j-b-m mentioned, HDV is non square pixels 1440x1080 was you Gimp image those dimensions or 1920x1080.

Disregarding the Youtube HD this and that, what do your encoded videos look like in your media player. Then you can establish whether the drop in quality is at source ie:kdenlive or reencode at Youtube. :-)

I meant that alpha 'Render' mode or resolution names; like HDV or whatever should include the exact resolution. Whenever I do a render I want to be able to set the frame rate and the resolution; if the desired res is more than the source material then it means scaling it up, if it's less then it means scaling down, always without any loss of the original. Lets'say I have an 660x540 image and I want 1920x1080, I would expect the render to scale 2* to a 1920x1080 with two black side bands.

Right now I'm rendering mpeg4 or mpeg2 (mpeg4 plays only with no sound in my BD deck). The resolution seems close to the original and is good quality but I haven't tried a new youtube upload, I'll wait for the work to be complete (in a few weeks).