Hardware/Software encoding in Premier Elements 2026

Good morning!

After installing Premier Elements 2021 on a new PC I found out that I reached the limited number of activations/installations (even being signed out from old computer) - that seems like a smart marketing move by the company to get rid of old-timers, who do not want to get hooked on subscriptions.

Ok, so now I am using subscription type Premier Elements 2026 (3 year subscription for $80). When I do the Export of the project and timeline has a customer logo “imposed” for 1 second, the whole frame gets a hase over and lightens up a bit. Which is quite annoying “improvement” - the video rolls, my model talks and as soon as logo appears in the corner of the screen, the whole frame lightens up. Internet suggests that I change the “export” settings - from Hardware accelerated encoding to Software accelerated encoding. Well, Software encoding works better with imposed customer logo, no haze added to the frame, good. But in other parts of the exported movie model talking mouth becomes pixelated as if I  digitize VHS tape on Intel Pentium 1999 - lips of talking model turn into Minecraft blocks. So now I have two options with Premier elements 2026 - hazed frame when customer logo is imposed (Hardware accelerated encoding),  or Minecraft-style mouth of talking model (Software accelerated encoding). Honestly, both options do not work for me. I wonder if there is a solution to have clean video with nice looking mouth of a model on screen.

The video card I use is GeForce 1060, 3GB. Asus motherboard STRIX Z890, 64GB RAM, Intel Core i7 - everything seems to be fresh and new… I am puzzled why 2018 and 2021 Premier Elements managed such imposed customer logo just fine, but 2026 Premier Elements require more efforts to resolve the bug. I hope someone may have tested solution how this introduced “haze” may be fixed. Sorry for the long post and thank you for help!