I'm relatively new to kdenlive and I'm brand new to the forum, so thanks in advance for any help given here!

I'm sure there are several topics with this title already, but after searching endlessly to no avail, I have to assume my problem is somewhat unique.

I am taking capture footage from a Playstation 4, editing it in Kdenlive, and posting it to YouTube. The PS4 source file is crystal clear, but the rendered file is lower res. At first I had the project profile set to 1080p, and the source file is 720p, so I thought the quality loss was coming from stretching it to 1080p (I just didn't realize the source was 720p at the time) but after adjusting the profile to 720p, the videos are still coming out lower res.

I'm just not sure where the quality loss is coming from. I know there is a lot of fine-tuning to be done in the settings, and frankly, I have no idea where to start. I notice any video file I render in kdenlive seems to double in bit rate and data rate. I'm not sure if that has something to do with it, or how I would go about preventing that or ensuring it's done properly. These seem to vary wildly video to video, without me adjusting any settings.

Uploading to YouTube provides a whole world of new problems, as their auto-compression makes it a guessing game of getting the right settings in kdenlive to ensure it comes out how you want it to on YouTube. So, even when I take the crystal clear, unedited source file and upload it to YouTube, it's still lower quality very similar to if I had rendered it through kdenlive.

I've found kdenlive settings that are supposedly optimal for Youtube, which look something like this:

"codec:v libx264 crf 21 bf 2 -flags +cgop pix_fmt yuv420p codec:a aac -strict -2 b:a 384k r:a 48000 -movflags=+faststart -fps 60"

But I'm not sure where I would put that information. I notice similar code in the "Parameters" textbox under "Transcode" in the settings, but again, I don't know if that's where I'd put this information or how to put it there properly and/or save it.

Basically I am completely lost on all fronts haha it's driving me up the wall. Every day hundreds of thousands of videos are recorded and uploaded to YouTube with immaculate quality, so I know there's a way to get it right. Most of my settings are relatively default, I don't adjust them too much, just a little here and there to experiment and see if I can maintain quality.

In summary, my goal is to edit a 720p video and have it maintain 720p after rendering, and after uploading to YouTube. Let me know if there's any information you need from me to help troubleshoot. Thanks in advance.


Note: I have had videos render to very good quality, seemingly without changing any settings, but of course all quality was lost after uploading to YouTube. It's breaking my brain.

I'm not that expert. If you are on Linux use the AppImage to make sure you have no packaging issue. Open a new project. Drag drop a PS4 file into the project bin and click on yes "Switch to clip profile". Does the playback in full monitor view looks good? Render with "MP4 – the dominating format". How is the quality?