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Question

Exporting at different size causes extreme degradation for clips with scaling applied

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
September 24, 2021
6 replies
490 views

So I have a 3072 x 1920 sequence, assembled from screen captures and a smattering of camera footage at a diferent res.

Some clips are at normal scaling.. some are zoomed in using the "scale" parameter on the clip.

If I export the sequence at "same as source" resolution everyhting looks fine... but if I export as a smaller size (e.g 720) the scaled clips look absolutely horrible, whereas the rest of the (unscaled) clips look fine (or as good as you'd expect for 720).

But if I export at original reslution, then use quicktime to save a 720 copy, it's all looks fantastic.

It's as if Pr is doing the 720 downsamping on the clips BEFORE it applies the zoom-in effect that I have on the clip.

Yes, I've tried doing a "render all" first and it makes no difference.

No I'm not on current build (14.0) - I've been burned by upgradeing Pr in the middle of a project before.

Anyone seen this or know the fix?

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R Neil Haugen

Legend

Going over to Reddit, and looking through the post there ... so you took a clip, ran it at-size, and then zoomed in 300%, then exported in both sequence size and 720, and then ... ok.

I note that there was a post you made about finding that use max render Q was the solution, and yes, it is needed when you are doing any resizing operations.

It's both an option in the sequence settings and in the export dialog. For handling exactly what you're doing here.

Save presets with Max Render Q checked. Issue solved.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

R Neil Haugen

Legend

I don't see your comment about this forum being a mess ... I'm not at all certain I really have a clue what you're doing or why. And yes, I went to the Reddit also.

How about simply listing the steps you're going through. Also it's useful to know what default scaling is set in your preferences, None, Set to, or Scale to, as that will affect this situation also.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

D

defaultqqxqcs6s79x1Author

Participating Frequently

This forum keep refusing some of my posts. No error - just nothing happens. Then a simple post like this will get thru...

The repro recipe is on the reddit thread along with a clear explanation. Try it and you'll see what i mean.

The answer is that "user maximum render Quality" is necessary if there's any kind of scaling going on.

And yes, it's a perfectly reasonable use of scaling (software product demonstrations)

I reckon this a bug as it really seems like the scaling and export resizing steps are being actioned in the wrong order.

R Neil Haugen

Legend

This sounds like a really odd way to go about that, if I am understanding your process ... which is quite possibly not the case.

You have media that is a range of frame-sizes, and you're putting it all on that UHD 3840x2160 timeline. Some clips are at least as small as 1280x720. And scaling in various manners.

I would expect a visual mess, actually.

As Warren notes, upscaling is hazardous and best done with apps specifically designed for it. Ae can do some, but then, only some. I would expect 1280x720 media simply scaled up to UHD to be pretty pixelated.

I wouldn't use a sequence more than one 'normal' size up from the smallest media of the sequence. So if the 720 is your smallest, I wouldn't go above a 1920x1080 working sequence. As the media being upscaled on playback devices is normally a heck of a lot better than being upscaled in the editing app.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

D

defaultqqxqcs6s79x1Author

Participating Frequently

This forum is ridiculous - I'll just post a link to the reddit thread on the same topic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/premiere/comments/pviw94/export_in_lower_resolution_very_poor_quality_for/

Warren Heaton

Community Expert

Just to clarify, do you have 1280-by-720 clips in a 3840-by-2160 Sequence scaled to 300% to fit the height of the Sequence?

If so, it is unrealistic to expect good picture quality.

For best results, you want to replace any clip with a frame size that is less than your Sequence frame size with an After Effects Composition while at 100% Scale and then apply the Detail-preserving Upscale effect (Effect > Distort > Detail-preserving Upscale) in AE. That said, this effect tends to work very well up to 200%. If scaling more than that, I recommend giving the trial version of Video Enhance AI from Topaz Labs a try.