Why is YouTube upload so slow?

I haven’t had this experience, and I just uploaded something yesterday.

First, most ISPs provide more download than upload throughput. For example, my ISP throttles my upload to 1/5th of my download. They do this to try to discourage file-sharing. The corporations which dominate the Internet want to turn the Internet into TV II, where you’re simply a passive observer with your mouth wide open, like a baby bird waiting to have whatever regurgitated pablum they want to feed you vomited down your gaping throat. Why encourage you to participate by giving you ample upload speed?

Secondly, I’m guessing that YouTube probably encodes videos on the fly, as they’re uploaded. They may be throttling your upload to limit the amount of cycles they need to dedicate to you for video processing. YouTube also uses hash-comparison to sniff out copyrighted videos, so they may be throttling you while they hash each chunk of your video and compare against their database.

And lastly, it could be a bottleneck anywhere between you and YouTube. Assuming you’re using some variation of Windows, go to start -> run -> and type “tracert Youtube.com” and see whether one of the servers in between you and them is timing out and dropping your packets into the bitbucket.

@tom_g Are you using the basic uploader? I’ve read other forums with several people having the same problem. I’ve even used the YouTube codec with Compressor to give YouTube less problems. Also, how big are your files? And what kind of files are you uploading?

@SmashTheState Sorry I’m on a Macbook Pro

This just in, I’m using the “Basic Uploader” (two options back) and with 158MB I’m already 11% in. Started about 4 minutes ago. This is much better. Earlier I was using the “new and improved upload look” and that gave me a time limit of what was said to be 7 hours of uploading left! So if anyone reads this use the “Basic Uploader”. It says it’s for “older computers” but I’m running a 2010 MacBookPro with 8GB Ram 2.7GHZ Intel Corei7.

@whitecarnations – Actually, now that I think of it, I uploaded directly from my iPhone. It was a 5.5-minute video, uploaded HD over wifi. Went quickly.

@tom_g Ah I see. They must have juiced that portion of their section up for optimization. The new uploader via computer is still in its pilot stages. When I uploaded straight from Final Cut X I was also stopped at the very last minute with a freeze. I had like 1% to go. There’s a damn bug.

Ok, something definitely is going on. I just tried uploading a 174MB video here at work using Chrome. It quickly jumped to 57%, but has been sitting at 57% for 3 minutes, and the remaining time is increasing. Looks stuck.

EDIT: There has been progress. I’m still timing it, so I’ll let you know when/if it finishes.

11 minutes total (including processing) for 174MB.

I’m still at 84% :( it’s 1pm now I don’t remember when I started.

@tom_g Do you think the faster my internet connection the faster the upload?

@whitecarnations – Certainly. However, internet speed is often advertised by the download speeds – not the upload speeds. So, I’m not sure how fast you connection is. Are you still experiencing this awful performance when uploading to youtube? How about other uploads? Have you ran a speed test?

@tom_g Yes my downloads seem fine. Is that the only way to test the speed? Also I’ve noticed even with file transfers through iChat when I let my buddies download off of me it is slow. However uploading to say, Mediafire seems fine.

Well, if your Mediafire uploads seem fine, then your upload speed is probably ok. When you upload to youtube, it also processes the file. But it shouldn’t take that long. All I can suggest is to keep experimenting. Try these or combinations until you can find something:
– try different browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE)
– make sure you’re not uploading content for any other reason at the same time (Carbonite, Mozy, or Dropbox auto-sync).
– If you have another computer, try it on your home network.
– Invite a friend over with a notebook and have them try.

Good luck.