Participating Frequently

Question

Export Issue - Maximum Render Quality/Depth

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
November 6, 2018
4 replies
11231 views

When I export to mp4 in h.264 or .mov in various flavors of Apple Pro Res I can no longer use the "Render to maximum quality" or "Render to maximum depth" check boxes. If I do the result is an export with a couple stops of added brightness. The attached images show the frame exported without those 2 buttons selected and with them selected. The one with blown out highlights is WITH them selected. Any ideas? This is way beyond the typical Premiere/Quicktime gamma shift.

This topic has been closed for replies.

the_dudes

Inspiring

People wanting a deep dive: Here's the definitive breakdown and analysis of the issue: https://blog.frame.io/2021/06/07/premiere-pro-max-render-quality-max-bit-depth/#What_does_Adobe_say
This confusion has been going on for too long!

I'd like to tag adobe on this, but how?

R Neil Haugen

Legend

I'm with Ann ... read that post from the Adobe blog, but then go to the Jarle link she lists.

And take anything from Jarle as Gospel. The guy's that solid. His tests on Max depth were to a detail level that was intense and exacting. I was able to replicate everything including working with some 12-bit that I got ahold of. (I don't normally see that in my shop.)

I was very surprised that say, having the Max Depth was as necessary on the Sequence settings as in the Export box. And that simply checking Max Depth in the export might not be enough with ProRes & DNx variants, that it is wise to ALSO click the 16-bpc option there.

That was new information. And verified by myself and others. And also, I might add, accepted by the engineers now. Several of us have had discussions with them. They replicated Jarle's work also.

Three versions back this was not the case, which is why the 'old' advice to skip Max depth worked ... then. But not now. Something changed in the code.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

the_dudes

Inspiring

Another shortcoming of the cryptic formulation in Premiere and Media Encoder. People jump in with sometimes cocky or puzzling answers. Whereas the original culprit lies in the erratic "Render at Maximum Depth", which is still lacking a proper explanation anywhere in the official documentaion. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Ann Bens

Community Expert

Very true, no proper explanation in the Help.

The Ultimate Guide to Premiere Pro's Render Quality Settings Jarle

Mo Moolla

Legend

That workflow is fine but can slow you down if your hardware is not up to par. Proxies would make playback significantly faster but you seem to be managing,

The extreme shift in gamma values is pretty weird. Could be a combination of many things:

1. Lumetri correction on CC2019 is acting up on render

2. Your output format is different to the native codec of original files and is somehow affecting the gamma (although this would be very rare)

3. CC2019 has an issue when enabling the render max quality and depth settings

Are you rendering using software or hardware?

I personally feel if you are happy with the final output without enabling max quality and depth unticked it should be fine.

If you for some reason need a little higher quality bump up the Target and Maximum Bitrate sliders but please note these have considerable impact on the file size.

So lets do a process of elimination on a small sequence as a test.

1. Render and enable Render at Max Depth and leave Max Quality unticked.

2. Render and enable Render at Max Quality and leave Max Depth unticked.

The gamma shift will be appear one of the 2.

Trust this helps a little, Let me know.

Mo

ericas90264024Author

Participating Frequently

Ok now we're on to something. The gamma shift DID appear when "max depth" was checked but not on "max quality." I had done this test previously to posting here but not with VBR 2 pass. Only CBR or VBR 1 pass. I saw the gamma shift on both attempts.

Would the fact that both tests you just had me try were using "software encoding" and not hardware?

Thanks again for spending the time on this.

Mo Moolla

Legend

CBR is Constant Bit Rate, VBR is Variable Bit Rate. In a CBR MPEG stream the encoder uses the same amount of bits for every second of video. So if you set it to CBR with a bit rate of 5Mb/s all of the video will be encoded using 5 megabits per second. A 2 pass is always better (although longer render time) as the 1st pass is analyzing your project and the 2nd pass actually executes the compression. Better results using 2 pass.

During a VBR encoding process the bitrate of the media file will dynamically increase or decrease depending on the media files bitrate needs. VBR takes longer to encode but produces the most favorable results as the quality of the media file is superior. VBR is most commonly used for http delivery if video content (http progressive)

When it comes to selecting VBR vs. CBR, It is almost always recommended that you use VBR encoding for your media files as it provides higher quality files. We would suggest that you do not use CBR unless you have a specific need for playback on a device that only supports CBR.

So you should try the following workflow:

1. Use VBR 2 Pass (remember longer render times)

2. Diable Max Depth

3. Enable Max Quality

4. In my experience if you have all your drivers updated and use hardware acceleration having both ticked shouldn't change gamma. I use this for all my projects and never ran into gamma or any issues, But this is was on CC2018, CC2019 might have changes a few things,

Trust this helps you and gets you back on track

Mo

R Neil Haugen

Legend

Why are you checking those to begin with?

If you have a GPU, Max Bit Depth is irrelevant anyway as you're already getting that performance if applicable to your media. And, yea, having that box checked can cause issues at times.

Max Render Q is something you really only need if you are doing significant resizing and are having trouble with, say, jaggies on diagonals in an export. And yes, that can both slow down exports and in some cases induce artifacts or errors.

In the vast majority of cases these two options are neither necessary nor useful but they can slow your exports at best.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

ericas90264024Author

Participating Frequently

Thanks for the response.

So in a practical sense I would check these boxes for exporting 3.2k Alexa ProRes 4444 to Davinci Resolve or sending to other colorists. Would an export of that quality not require "Maximum Quality?" Is the term itself misleading in this context?

Thanks

R Neil Haugen

Legend

Those names are rather uninformative. If you are having troubles with jaggies when say exporting to 1080 from that 3.2k media, then Max Render Q might assist with those jaggies.

The only time to use Max Depth is if you do not have a dedicated GPU and you are say having troubles with banding.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded