best export format to copy large video files to USB

[ChrisWheeler]

hi there, I create life story films and some of them are very long! I output the final video on USB memory sticks for families and obviously want it to be the highest quality possible. The film I am about to export is 1.5hours duration. It's shot in 4K. I'm happy for the export to take a long time, I'm using H.264 and a high quality present. However when I watch back the export, it works well if i watch from start to finish, but if I skip around to different parts of the video it goes out of sync, and doesn't seem to catch up with itself. Any tips on how I can solve this? 

[LinSims]

Please let us know which program you are having problems with. Someone will be along to move this post to the appropriate product forum, where you are more likely to get an answer to your question.

The Using the Community forum is for help in using the Adobe Support Community forums, not for help with specific programs. Product questions should be posted in the associated product community.

[John T Smith]

Are you asking about Premiere Pro or Premiere Elements... or some other program?

When you ask a question you always need to provide some basic information
-Forum quick start https://community.adobe.com/t5/Community-Help/ASK-Forum-Success-Guide-Efficiently-using-the-forums/t...
-https://community.adobe.com/t5/Get-Started/Questions-you-need-to-answer-to-receive-better-help/td-p/6199470
-https://community.adobe.com/t5/get-started/how-to-post-and-get-your-issue-resolved-or-what-do-you-need-to-know-to-solve-my-issue/td-p/11178657?page=1

[ChrisWheeler]

hi John, sorry missed 'Premiere Pro or Premiere Elements' bit of  your question and was very up against work schedule so got a bit a bit overwhelmed with all the links to forum quickstart, I will make sure I spend time on all that when I can. The answer to the above is I'm using premier pro. I've think  I've solved my problem and have pasted at the bottom of this thread

[Nancy OShea]

The video should be copied to the computer's primary hard drive (SSD preferred) for viewing.  USB sticks are OK for transport but very slow compared to blazing fast SSD drives.

Offering digital downloads might be another option to consider.  My Internet connection can download a 2GB full feature MP4 video in no time.

Are you using Adobe Media Encoder to transcode the video?

[ChrisWheeler]

thanks for you reply Nancy. I'll look into media encoder as I've not been using that for digital downloads, see if it helps. I agree with you about SSD drives versus usb sticks, however members of the public often don't have access to ssd so need something to keep films on for the future. It's a bit like a family heirloom so difficult to know best way to preserve it. but thats no really an issue for adobe 🙂 

[John T Smith]

You still haven't answered... are you using Premiere Pro or Premiere Elements?

[Nancy OShea]

[Moderator moved from Using the Community (forums) to Adobe Media Encoder.]

[davidarbor]

The more compressed your file it is, the harder it will be to decode and play back in real-time. H.264 is the most universal format to play on other machines, but your playback experience wont match others. First, as has already been said, playing a video directly off of a USB stick will always be a worse viewing experience than if you copied the file to an internal drive. It's also unclear if these USB sticks are USB 2 or 3—they could even be USB 3 sticks plugged into USB 2 ports. Not every USB stick performs the same, so even if what you are using are USB 3 and they're plugged into USB 3 ports, playing back a huge 4K video is going to have poor performance. Perhaps you can also include a 1080p version for playback directly on the stick, in addition to the 4K "archive" version.

Assuming you're exporting directly out of Premiere Pro using the H.264 High Quality preset, using Media Encoder won't help you, as the export options are identical. It will, however, allow you to export your project in the background while you continue working in Premiere, which you can't do if you're exporting directly from Premiere.

[ChrisWheeler]

hi all - thanks for your help here - I think I've solved my usb stick question though -  I wasn't using the skip function (30seconds forward - 10 seconds back) to check different parts of the export, but used the  blue circle on the blue timeline bar to scroll back and forwards. When I did this the export became jumpy or out of sync, (whether it was copie to a usb drive or my ssd drive) but using the skip forward or back function solved it.  

[Warren Heaton]

Hi Chris:

There's a general rule of thumb in multimedia production where you supply multiple playback options - usually at least two - when delivering video to users without knowing what their computers/devices will be capable of playing.  

Specific to what you're doing, I would consider providing three versions of your exported H264 movie:  2160p, 1080p. and 480p SD Wide.

If you're using Adobe Media Encoder, you can encode each of these at the same time using the following H264 presets:

• YouTube 2160p 4K Ultra HD
• YouTube 1080p Full HD
• YouTube 480p SD Wide

You'll notice that Media Encoder provides similar presets for Vimeo, Mobile Devises, and High Quality.  Those should work just as well.

Losing sync commonly indicates that the bandwidth of the storage media is too low for the movie file being played.   A 480p SD Wide H264 movie file stands the best chance of playing back smoothly and in sync at all times from a USB2 thumb drive with the trade-off being a smaller frame size.  Of course, if you're not already doing it, be sure ot use USB3 thumb drives so that if the higher bandwidth is available it can be taken advantage of.  That, and as indicated in other responses, recommend that users copy the movie file to their local hard drive.

-Warren