Premiere/Encoder H264 File Size and Compression
Hey All,
Perhaps some light could be shone here on this issue.
Why are Adobe's H264s so big? I'm talking, really big. And when I am able to restrict the bitrate to attempt a lower file size, the picture comes out noisy as hell.
Specifically, I am taking feature films with a ProRes 4444 source and exporting "Audio Reference" Quicktimes, which basically have all 16+ audio tracks same-as-source, but with a compressed 480p H264 picture, so that an Audio QC guy can check the sound in ProTools, but not have to have a 200GB file. Instead, we usually target a 15-20GB file size.
Anyway, I've run tests out of Premiere/Encoder, Davinci Resolve, Avid, even Handbrake. I am always going into the most advanced, granular, customized options for all these export tests - max render quality on/off, bitrate per second limiting, etc. - and without exception, the Premiere files always come out larger and worse than any of the other programs.
A Resolve output, for example, got me an H264 at a cap of 5mbps of 13.7GB. A test with Premiere at 3mbps came out at 17.8GB and looked ten times worse.
Is Adobe just using a worse H264 compression than the rest of the competition? Seems like that cannot possibly be the case, but I cannot disprove it otherwise.
AdChoices