How long your video takes to process after it's
uploaded depends on a few variables: your file
size, compression, and the available bandwith
(which means YouTube upload traffic). Please
consider....
People all over the planet are uploading videos
to YouTube literally every second of every day
(13 hours' worth every minute according to the
YouTube blog of November 12, 2008).
Because everyone is uploading different types
of videos (like AVI, MOV, MPG, WMV, etc) in
different file sizes, lengths, and compressions,
YouTube says it sometimes takes up to a fun
8 hours before your video is processed -- even
though it sometimes really takes up to 2 days.
The major reason for this is because YouTube
still has to scan for illegal copyrighted content,
"decompress", "convert", "encode", "database"
and "index" every recently uploaded video into
their universal format, thus ensuring that every
computer around the world can access & play
any YouTube video. Every once in a while, the
servers at YouTube will "drop the ball", leaving
you hanging without any explanation.
If, after 8 hours, YouTube is still displaying the
dreaded "processing, please wait", it might be
time for you to reluctantly "pull the plug", click
"Remove Video", and start uploading the video
all over again.
YouTube says that their ideal format is mpeg4
at 640x480 resolution. But, that was when the
player was 425x344 pixels in size. Since their
upgrade to the wide-screen format, the ideal is
actually 480x360 (or 640x360 for wide-screen).
Here is the actual YouTube reference with the
URL address written in full, followed by its link:
www . google . com / support / youtube / bin / answer . py ? hl = en & answer = 71674
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=71674