the ones that look good

ok

are you rendering with .tgas or avi?

if avi, switch to tga and use virtualdub. much better quality/smoother. then encode the images with lagaraith lossless codec. That should spit out a .avi, then i recommend doing your final render in h.264 mp4. youtube seems to like that better than avi.

I record using Lawena, after that I use Virtualdub to encode .tga files to .avi. Once I am done with that, I just start editing bunch .avi files in Sony Vegas. When everything is ready, I render the final video as .avi using x264 encoder as mentioned in the topic.

Just tried the mp4 and it looks even worse :(

You'll probably get better results if you use an external encoder instead of encoding through vegas. Just rendered uncompressed then use MeGUI or Adobe Media Encoder to compress.

x264vfw is outdated and isn't maintained like its cli variant.

export lossless into virtualdub
Learn how to use the external encoder feature on version 1.10.3
x264 + NeroAAC > Mp4box

x264

--crf 18 --profile high --preset placebo --level 4.1 --tune animation --bframes 2 --me esa --deblock -3:-1 --cplxblur 0 --qblur 0 --subme 10 --trellis 2 --aq-mode 2 --psy-rd 0.1:0.0 --nr 500 --keyint 15 --demuxer raw --input-res %(width)x%(height) --fps %(fpsnum)/%(fpsden) -o "%(tempvideofile)" -

NeroAAC (use virtualdub's audio resampling to 44k to 48k)

-cbr 320000 -lc -ignorelength -if - -of "%(tempaudiofile)"

Mp4Box

-no-sys -inter 500 -add "%(tempvideofile)" -add "%(tempaudiofile)" "%(outputname)" -fps %(fps)

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en

or use handbrake.

Only the final recording should be in lossy x264.

windows movie maker is pretty good

what dellort said or if you want something simple then render as .avi uncompressed and encode with easy h264

http://tweevo.com/easy-h-264-video-encoder/

http://i.imgur.com/KQ5r0D8.png

This is coming straight from Google's encoding guide for Youtube. The video WILL stutter on your PC, but will look smooth on Youtube due to the method of encoding they use.

For 720p - 5000 kbps
For 1080p - 8000 kbps
For 2k+ or upscale - 25000 kbps

If you noticed, I said "upscale". Due to the drastic change in bitrate, it can be beneficial to upload your 1080p content in 2k. Here is a great video explaining it and showing comparisons if you're interested:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR3bD1dUzQw

Also, jp_, did you seriously just recommend placebo?

I just downloaded Sony Vegas 12 Pro and was messing around with Render settings. This is what I'm using now

http://i.imgur.com/ONagDQD.png

EDIT: If anyone who knows how to actually use Sony Vegas I would appreciate if you could tell me if my template is way off.

You currently have it set to interlaced. Go to the Field Order and set it to "None (Progressive Scan)". This will get rid of scanlines in your video.

Also make sure your framerate matches up. If you are recording in a multiple of 60 FPS, then export at 60 FPS instead of 59.94.

Framerate doesn't really matter since the tf2 recording aren't precise anyways (480 fps might actually be 477.262 for example). I think rendering at 59.94 is better for youtube which plays at 29.97 fps if I'm not mistaken, so it's a direct 2:1 conversion.

Its 29.94 FPS. Downloading a Youtube video confirms it(although Google just recommends to upload in whatever source framerate you have)

I would suggest EH264 as it hardly takes away from quality + it's incredibly easy to use

From my own experience i can say that youtube loves .avi files. I always render in either .avi uncompressed or .avi compressed with xvid codec. This one is pretty good quality and it's .avi compressed with xvid http://youtu.be/mKGJ2oEjJcg

I've always had issues with .mp4 for some odd reason. Either audio gets out of sync, or youtube fucks it up completely: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cybdENV3oQk

If you want, i can make a screenshot of my vdub + sony vegas rendering settinsg

One of my friends suggested to try Ripbot and I was really happy with the end result. However, the quality on YouTube doesn't look amazing either. At least I now have a superb quality HQ video file.

That would be appreciated.

This is what I do, (sometimes srcdemo2) -> vdub (lagarith) -> vegas (uncompressed, get errors with lagarith here) -> megui (x264 with crf 19.0)
Works pretty well, should end up with something like this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7jVUBIOZnI

http://i.imgur.com/weTkCOK.png