Inspiring

Question

What codec do I use for QuickTime 10.4 when rendering non-animated video?

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
April 25, 2018
3 replies
5053 views

I recently digitized some old low-resolution family VHS tapes, edited them in Premiere Pro CC 2018 using a MacBook Pro late 2013 version, and rendered them in Premiere Pro using the H.264 codec with QuickTime 10.4. The rendered videos do not have the same sharpness as the project previews. I tried rendering them in After Effects CC 2018 to get better results, but the H.264 had disappeared. Which codec should I use? For some reason the default setting is "animation." I'm not sure what settings my QuickTime uses; I've been unable to find them. QuickTime is not listed in my system preferences.

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Roland Kahlenberg

Brainiac

What were your render settings? I hope you used Constant bitrate - so what was the bitrate? Increasing it should help but one should be cognizant that at sufficiently high levels, only marginal improvements will be perceptible; by a fair few.

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C

caal66Author

Inspiring

How do you control the bitrate? When I rendered the videos, I did so in Premiere Pro using the H.264, Match Source--High Bitrate settings.

Stan Jones

Community Expert

Scroll down to the bitrate settings in the video tab.

Conrad_C

Community Expert

caal66 wrote
I recently digitized some old low-resolution family VHS tapes, edited them in Premiere Pro CC 2018 using a MacBook Pro late 2013 version, and rendered them in Premiere Pro using the H.264 codec with QuickTime 10.4. The rendered videos do not have the same sharpness as the project previews.

(I also have an ElGato Video Capture that I use with Premiere Pro on the Mac) Do the Premiere Pro exports look the same at the same size? Because VHS can look sort of OK when you're editing in the little Program panel, but when the final exported video is viewed full screen, especially on a current TV many times the size of the TVs originally used to view VHS, VHS can look very disappointing.

For example, I would expect that if you played back the previews from the Premiere Pro timeline in full screen (press Ctrl+` ), they should look comparable to the exported video played back full screen.

If that's not the problem, and bitrate is not the problem, you could try this in Premiere: Open the Lumetri Color panel, open the Creative group of options, and increase the Sharpen slider. That might only work up to a certain point, since VHS probably won't withstand much sharpening, but it's something to try.

C

caal66Author

Inspiring

I compared the preview with the export and discovered they are roughly the same. The preview looks a little bit sharper.

Dave_LaRonde

Inspiring

Well, QTX pretty much stinks anyway. QT 7 is lots better.

And you don't need to be in AE -- stick with PP. AE's NOT going to do a better job with H.264.

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caal66Author

Inspiring

So, the older version, QT7, works better than the new one? Is there any other video player available for Mac users like me who want to share rendered videos with family members who have PCs and Apple products? As I understand it, rendering in Premiere Pro using H.264 is as good as it gets.I thought perhaps the "lossless" feature in After Effects might improve the quality.

Stan Jones

Community Expert

Digitizing via a composite connection is the source for the biggest quality loss in the entire process; barring poor CODEC selection and a low bitrate setting. A facility may be able to provide Y/C (s-video) or even component signal into the digitization process. There are also hardware upscaling benefits that may be provided by a purposed facility. On the need to go HD1080, I was looking at preserving the footage to what is deemed 'standard' rez today. As you rightly mentioned, there may be negative impact with cutoffs or black bars but these can be put into consideration rather than being used as justification as deal-breakers.

I just tested 2 options on "old" edited videos: digitally captured (e.g. Sony HandyCam) footage and exported in the same AVI DV format. The relevance here is that it is SD. My current 4K TV uses hardware upscaling, and interlaced or progressive, the footage looks a touch better if I export the mp4's at the "original" size rather than using anything to upscale. AE's detail preserving upscale did a respectable job, but did not seem worth the trouble. After all, these were shot at SD on consumer or prosumer equipment. The big issue was interlaced on computer playback, but the software player (VLC in my tests) had very nice deinterlacing settings. So my current "deliverable" is mp4, using the plain ol' PR/AME format/preset of H.264/Match Source - High Bitrate (which is target 10, max 12, single pass VBR). Yes, this might be improved, but it is close to the "original."

I agree with the comments about archival versions. So far, my archival version is the original edited export in AVI DV PCM. I need to improve this, but it takes it place in a long list.

My father's 16MM film (1940s equipment, films from late 1940s to early 1960s) were steadily deteriorating, and I sent them to a company in California and had them digitized - approximately 2 hours that were still capable of being transferred. The old VHS versions done years ago were not bad (ugly can be endearing in old memories), but the 16MM was capable of about Blu-ray quality. But yes, they are 1920x1080 - with black on left and right to preserve the frame. Still very nice to have. Archival was an issue there, and I settled for 32Mbps mp4s.

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