Troubleshoot audio or video issues

If you're having problems with the audio or video of your upload, try these troubleshooting steps to solve the issue.

Verify your video settings to fix common issues

Making changes to your video's settings can solve common audio and video issues. Follow these steps to check and change the video's settings.

Open the video in a video editing program

You can use a program like iMovie, Final Cut Pro, or Quicktime Pro. If you uploaded the video from your mobile device, download the video on your desktop computer first.

Use the export dialog to see the video's settings:

iMovie: Select Share > Export Using QuickTime.
Finalcut Pro: Select File > Export > Using Quicktime Conversion.
QuickTime Pro: Select File > Export > Export: Movie to QuickTime Movie.

Verify video settings

Use Options to make sure the video's settings match our recommendations:

Video settings

Compression Type: H.264
Frame Rate: 30 is preferred. 23.98, 24, 25, 29.97 are also acceptable.
Data Rate: Automatic
Key Frames: Automatic
Frame Reordering: Unchecked

Audio/Sound settings

Format: AAC
Click Show advanced settings and choose Constant Bit Rate as encoding strategy

Other settings

Size: Choose the original size of the video
“Prepare for Internet Streaming”: Fast Start

Save and export

Once the video has the recommended settings, re-upload the video on YouTube.

Audio and video are out of sync

Make sure the durations of your audio and video tracks are the same. For example, if your audio plays for 50 seconds but your video only plays for 40 seconds, it could cause sync problems.

To change the length of your audio and video tracks, you can use a video editor like Windows Movie Maker or iMovie, then upload the content to YouTube.

Can't add copy-protected song to video

If you get an error message telling you that the song you tried to add is copy-protected, it means that the song file has a kind of copy protection called Digital Rights Management (DRM). You can't add a DRM-protected copies of songs to videos on YouTube.

Digital Rights Management is a copy protection technology that is built into a file to restrict it from being copied and used in ways specified by the content provider. Some Internet music stores use DRM to restrict usage of downloaded music. Whether your copy of the song is copy-protected depends on where you got the song from.

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