How to get less pixelation in my videos?

[VG Docs]

Here's an example of a video of mine that looks good, but not anywhere near as good as the original video file. I understand that youtube compresses most (if not all) videos, but is there any way I can make it look better? My settings on sony vegas are pretty darn high as it is.

I always disable resampling on everything.

Here are some other relevant settings:

 

Output format: MainConcept AVC/AAC 

Resolution: 1920x1080

Profile: High

Frame Rate: 60 FPS

Field order: None (Progressive Scan)

2 Reference Frames

Bit Rate: Constant, at 50,000,000 bps (50k kbps, 50 Mbps)

I enabled progressive mode

 

Is there anything else I can do to reduce the pixelation in my videos?

[linusforsell]

Drop the constant bit rate and run VBR instead, that'll let it decide the required rate per frame instead and in turn reduce the compression artifacts. That'll lead to unpredictable file size in most situations, however.

[Icefire555]

I suggest to brighten the video. Pretty much all video cap software makes it look slightly darker. 

Test different bit rates. setting it super high will make youtube quickly render it in a lower bit rate.

What rendering software do you use?

[VG Docs]

I suggest to brighten the video. Pretty much all video cap software makes it look slightly darker. 

That was my bad, it's been a while since I've edited anything, so I added more dark contrast than I should've.

 

What rendering software do you use?

Sony Vegas Pro 13

 

Drop the constant bit rate and run VBR instead, that'll let it decide the required rate per frame instead and in turn reduce the compression artifacts. That'll lead to unpredictable file size in most situations, however.

Test different bit rates. setting it super high will make youtube quickly render it in a lower bit rate.

I guess I'll try that, any specific settings I should try out, or should I just experiment?

[.spider.]

Scale it up to 4k

You'll lose a bit sharpness due to the scaling but gain a lot quality buy the higher 4k YouTube bitrates.

[VG Docs]

Scale it up to 4k

You'll lose a bit sharpness due to the scaling but gain a lot quality buy the higher 4k YouTube bitrates.

Wouldn't that only be effective for people who have 4k monitors when they're watching it?

[.spider.]

Wouldn't that only be effective for people who have 4k monitors when they're watching it?

As I sad the bitrate makes the difference and not the resolution.

[VG Docs]

As I sad the bitrate makes the difference and not the resolution.

Sorry, but I'm a little confused. The bit rate doesn't just automatically go up because it's a higher res, does it? 

My bit rate's already pretty high, so the only thing I'd see would be a higher resolution (assuming I have a monitor that can display that) right?

[.spider.]

 The bit rate doesn't just automatically go up because it's a higher res, does it? 

 

It does Youtube ~1080p is 5Mbit, 4K is ~20Mbit

[VG Docs]

It does Youtube ~1080p is 5Mbit, 4K is ~20Mbit

So would that mean that it's useless to upload a 1080p video at anything higher than 5Mb/s?

[.spider.]

So would that mean that it's useless to upload a 1080p video at anything higher than 5Mb/s?

No, because of YouTube's reencoding

If your 5mbit/s source video is a bit blocky and shows some ringing artifacts, the Youtube reencoding will try to retain these errors and add new compression artifacts itself.

If you upload a 30Mbit/s which is "errorless", the YouTube reencoding only add its own artifacts.

The benefit of uploading a 10Mbit/ video to YT instead of a 5Mbit/s video is much bigger than uploading a 20Mbit/s video instead of a 10Mbit/s video.

This is it in general, there are some exceptions... not so important.