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Video montage workflow question.

Participant ,
Jul 25, 2020 Jul 25, 2020

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Hi!

 

I'm a Photoshop teacher and I need to do YouTube video tutorials for my students this semester. 

 

I use QuickTime to do my screen recordings, and I will make an opening sequence using After Effets. 

Here are a few questions:

 

1- My screen recordings are 2560x1440. Should I create a 2560x1440 compostion in After Effects for my opening sequence?

 

2- QuickTime records my screen at 60 fps. Should I apply the same fps to my opening sequence composition in After Effects?

3- How should I put the opening sequence and the screen recording together? Via QuickTime or via After Effects? If via After Effects, how should I render the final version in Media Encoder? I don't see a 1440p YouTube option! My tutorials can be 30 minutes long, and I'm afraid rendering via Media Encoder will take too long... Also, I don't want to loose too much quality in the process.

THANK YOU!

Chris.

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LEGEND ,
Jul 25, 2020 Jul 25, 2020

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1. yes, if your output for the entire thing is 2560x1440. 

2. yes. if your output for the entire thing is 60 fps it would be better to match the fps all throughout your project. 

3. you can place your recording in after effects with the sequence all together and render from there. or render your sequence in after effects and place it with the recording in premiere. at the end you should render through adobe media encoder. you can change the preset to whatever res you need. make a little test with small duration until you are satisfied with the quality. 

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Participant ,
Jul 25, 2020 Jul 25, 2020

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Thank you for your answers! I appreciate it a lot!

 

1. yes, if your output for the entire thing is 2560x1440.

– My final output is YouTube, and I think their maximum is 1080p. What should I do?

2. yes. if your output for the entire thing is 60 fps it would be better to match the fps all throughout your project. 

– The fps of my final output (YouTube) could be anything I think.

3. you can place your recording in after effects with the sequence all together and render from there. or render your sequence in after effects and place it with the recording in premiere. at the end you should render through adobe media encoder. you can change the preset to whatever res you need. make a little test with small duration until you are satisfied
with the quality. 
– Rendering 30 minute tutorials through Media Encoder will take way too long, no? (Rendering 15 second After Effects compositions take forever!) Also, when choosing H.264, there is no 1440p preset for YouTube on Media Encoder, just 480, 720, 1080, and 2160p... What should I do?

Thanks again!

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LEGEND ,
Jul 26, 2020 Jul 26, 2020

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the maximum is not 1080, you can go further. just change the preset as you wish. you can create your own too. you have options there to match video settings.

Roei_Tzoref_0-1595781118008.png

you might want to test different bitrate settings to match what you need. and you can always choose the high quality preset high-bitrate match source which will give you very good quality

Roei_Tzoref_1-1595781172878.png


uploading 1440P is common and within the youtube recommedations. you can also leave it 60fps. 

as for a workflow. it would probably be best if you create your opening sequence in after effects, render it in a lossless format like Prores 422, then import that into premiere, along with your recording. then do what you need if you need to further cut your tutorial or fix the audio, then queue or export to adobe media encoder. 

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Participant ,
Jul 25, 2020 Jul 25, 2020

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Thank you for your answers! I appreciate it a lot!

 

1. yes, if your output for the entire thing is 2560x1440.

– My final output is YouTube, and I think their maximum is 1080p. What should I do?

2. yes. if your output for the entire thing is 60 fps it would be better to match the fps all throughout your project. 

– The fps of my final output (YouTube) could be anything I think.

3. you can place your recording in after effects with the sequence all together and render from there. or render your sequence in after effects and place it with the recording in premiere. at the end you should render through adobe media encoder. you can change the preset to whatever res you need. make a little test with small duration until you are satisfied
with the quality. 
– Rendering 30 minute tutorials through Media Encoder will take way too long, no? (Rendering 15 second After Effects compositions take forever!) Also, when choosing H.264, there is no 1440p preset for YouTube on Media Encoder, just 480, 720, 1080, and 2160p... What should I do?

Thanks again!

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Participant ,
Jul 25, 2020 Jul 25, 2020

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1. My final output is YouTube, and I think their maximum is 1080p. What should I do?

2. The fps of my final output (YouTube) could be anything I think.

3. Rendering 30 minute tutorials through Media Encoder will take way too long, no? (Rendering 15 second After Effects compositions take forever!) Also, when choosing H.264, there is no 1440p preset for YouTube on Media Encoder, just 480, 720, 1080, and 2160p... What should I do?

Thanks again!

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Participant ,
Jul 25, 2020 Jul 25, 2020

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1. My final output is YouTube, and I think their maximum is 1080p. What should I do?

2. The fps of my final output (YouTube) could be anything I think.

3. Rendering 30 minute tutorials through Media Encoder will take way too long, no? (Rendering 15 second After Effects compositions take forever!) Also, when choosing H.264, there is no 1440p preset for YouTube on Media Encoder, just 480, 720, 1080, and 2160p... What should I do?

Thanks again!

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Participant ,
Jul 25, 2020 Jul 25, 2020

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1. My final output is YouTube, and I think their maximum is 1080p. What should I do? Thank you!

2. The fps of my final output (YouTube) could be anything I think.

3. Rendering 30 minute tutorials through Media Encoder will take way too long, no? (Rendering 15 second After Effects compositions take forever!) Also, when choosing H.264, there is no 1440p preset for YouTube on Media Encoder, just 480, 720, 1080, and 2160p... What should I do? I'm confused... 

Thanks again!

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LEGEND ,
Jul 25, 2020 Jul 25, 2020

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YouTube can go way over 1080. I think they even go over 8k (which is rather ridiculous currently), but you can certainly do 4k if you wanted to.

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LEGEND ,
Jul 25, 2020 Jul 25, 2020

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1. Maybe. It depends on how you decide to output in question 3.

2. Yes.

3. I'd do it in Premiere. And, if you're putting it out on YouTube, I'd suggest putting it in a 16:9 sequence. Since your screen is recording that large, maybe do a 4K sequence or do a 1080 sequence and scale everything down.

 

That said, maybe don't use QuickTime to record things. If it doesn't give you an opportunity to record at a specific size, maybe try something like OBS that does. You can make a decision to do your screen recording at certain sizes. Then just fit the things you're presenting into that window. That way you can do it at a native YouTube size.

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Community Expert ,
Jul 25, 2020 Jul 25, 2020

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The only problem I see with your workflow is editing instructional videos in After Effects. You should be using Premiere Pro and only going to After Effects when you are faced with a problem you cannot solve in the NLE. Post-production will take you about 1/10 the time. Rendering out of Premiere Pro will also go a lot faster. 

 

I would also strongly suggest that you set the project frame size and frame rate to one of the video standards. In spite of what others recommend, YouTube will recompress your video to at least 3 standard frame sizes. The farther your video is off from their recommendations the more quality you will loose. Most of the monitors your students are going to be using will have refresh rates of 60Hz if you are in an NTSC country or 50Hz if you are in a PAL country that has 240V power. That means your frame rates should be 29.97 or 30 for NTSC or 25 for PAL. This will give the best quality video for your students, and keeping the frame size standard HD or 4K will also work best with all media players on all devices. 

 

I would also highly recommend an app like Screenflow. It does a lot better job of screen capture, has a lot of tools that make it easy to emphasise mouse clicks, zoom in on-screen recordings, and do a lot of the editing. The time you will save with a 

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Participant ,
Jul 26, 2020 Jul 26, 2020

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Rick_Gerard

The only problem I see with your workflow is editing instructional videos in After Effects.

– I don't necessarily want to edit in After Effects. The only thing I want to do in After Effects is the opening sequence I want to insert at the beginning of my tutorials.

 

You should be using Premiere Pro and only going to After Effects when you are faced with a problem you cannot solve in the NLE. Post-production will take you about 1/10 the time. Rendering out of Premiere Pro will also go a lot faster. 

– I'm not sure what NLE is, but I understand. One thing: Premiere doesn't rely on Media Encoder to do the final rendering?

I would also strongly suggest that you set the project frame size and frame rate to one of the video standards. In spite of what others recommend, YouTube will recompress your video to at least 3 standard frame sizes.

– In Media Encoder, when choosing H.264, the YouTube presets are 480, 720, 1080, and 2160p.

My screen recordings are 2560x1440 because my Apple Thunderbolt Display has that resolution, and the frame rate is 60 fps because it seems like QuickTime records at that frame rate.

The farther your video is off from their recommendations the more quality you will loose. Most of the monitors your students are going to be using will have refresh rates of 60Hz if you are in an NTSC country or 50Hz if you are in a PAL country that has 240V power. That means your frame rates should be 29.97 or 30 for NTSC or 25 for PAL.

– Canada. So NTSC.

 

This will give the best quality video for your students, and keeping the frame size standard HD or 4K will also work best with all media players on all devices. 

– Standard HD = 1280x720 and 4K = 3840x2160, right? But my screen is 2560x1440! I'm confused... 

 

I would also highly recommend an app like Screenflow. It does a lot better job of screen capture, has a lot of tools that make it easy to emphasise mouse clicks, zoom in on-screen recordings, and do a lot of the editing. The time you will save with a 

– So you recommend using Screenflow for putting the opening sequence and the tutorials together AND for my screen recordings? If so, how should I render my opening sequence from After Effects before importing it into Screenflow?

 

Thank you!

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Participant ,
Jul 26, 2020 Jul 26, 2020

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Szalam

 

1. The only way I know to output is with Media Encoder. Is there another way?

 

3. I'd do it in Premiere.

– OK.

 

And, if you're putting it out on YouTube, I'd suggest putting it in a 16:9 sequence.

– 2560x1440 is 16:9.

 

Since your screen is recording that large, maybe do a 4K sequence or do a 1080 sequence and scale everything down.
– My screen recordings are 2560x1440 because my Apple Thunderbolt Display has that resolution.

 

Thank you!

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Community Expert ,
Jul 26, 2020 Jul 26, 2020

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krissserz , I am glad you understand that After Effects is not an editing app, Let me clear up a couple of things. 

 

Let's talk about video standards to start with. I'll start with frame size. When deciding on frame size the first thing to consider is your audience. It's that simple. You are going to be delivering on YouTube to students that have machines that differ in display resolution, aspect ratio, internet connection, and processing power. There is no way you can guarantee that you will be able to match the aspect ratio of every display so the audience will see letterboxed or pillar boxed content on some of their screens. There is no way around that unless the viewer chooses to Crop the video cutting off either the sides or the top and bottom. The world standard for HD is 1080 X 1920. It is really that simple. Even on my 5K display, HD video looks great, especially if it is well-produced and properly color graded. I've already gone over frame rates and because you are in Canada have 60HZ power and your monitor refresh rate is 60Hz, you live in NTSC land so your frame rate should be 30fps. 

 

Let's talk about streaming services now. All of them without exception, recompress your video and prepare different versions suitable for different bandwidth connections. Somebody on a slow connection will be served up a smaller frame size. As far as I know. only Chrome and certain Windows machines are capable of delivering 4K playback. Here are screenshots of the different frame size options on my big powerful as good as you can get iMac Pro with a 5K display:

Screenshot_2020-07-26 08.20.46_UuWNyE.pngScreenshot_2020-07-26 08.19.49_tzWJjh.png

As you can see, there are no other options. There are also no options for frame rates. Most displays will run at 60Hz, some will run at 50Hz, but there is no perceptible difference between 60fps video and 30fps video, especially with something like a screen capture of a software demonstration unless you freeze a frame. All streaming services will scale both the frame size and the frame rate based on the available bandwidth. Unless you have a specific need to create content at 60 fps, there is absolutely no reason to use a frame rate higher than 30. For YouTube content, or Vimeo, or any other streaming service, 99% of the audience is never going to get 60fps playback anyway, and your eyes can't see the difference, especially in a screen capture video demonstrating Photoshop. The only thing setting up a project at 60 fps will give you id double the file size and twice the render time. 

 

What does all that mean to your project? Your screen recordings are 2560 X 1440 and 60fps. That is smaller than YouTube's 4K which is 3840 X 2160 and you would have to scale down the footage to 75% to have it fit in an HD frame. Scaling up the original footage to 4K would not improve the quality of the QuickTime recording, but it would increase your render time significantly because you would have 4X the number of pixels to calculate and the file size would also go way up. 

 

On the other hand, if you set your project (comp or Premiere Pro sequence) to 1920 (1080 HD) you could push in on your screen capture to show closeups of things like the Layer Panel or the Brushes with very little quality loss. I've been producing screen capture instructional videos for some pretty major corporations for a little more than 20 years and I've only delivered a couple of them at 4K and those were for special events where the video was to be projected on a 60' screen in a huge arena for a big corporate event. 

 

I would set your comp and your sequences to 1920 X 1080, 30fps, and scale down the footage because there is absolutely nothing to gain for your intended audience by rendering 4K. 

 

If you want to work in and try and deliver 4K then you should invest in Screenflow because you can zoom in on the screen capture with almost no quality loss and emphasize Mouse Clicks and Keystrokes. Even if you stick with HD, Screenflow is a very good tool for this kind of work. I record with it, render Pro-Rez DI's (digital intermediates), and do my final editing in Premiere Pro using the Essential Graphics workspace and MOGRTS created and customized in AE for the titling, Info Screens, and call outs. Here's a gif showing how easy it is to zoom into a screen capture and record a mouse click that I made for this post. Took about a minute.

Screenflow.gif

And by the way, HD is 1920 X 1080, not 1280 X 720. That would be HDV/HDTV, which was the broadcast standard for HD when it was first introduced but is no longer used by any broadcaster but may still be delivered by cable and satellite TV companies in places where the infrastructure is not sufficient to handle HD broadcasts or the package the customer bought is at the bottom of the list. Nobody should be working in HDV content unless they are seriously bandwidth limited. 

 

As I said before, I record and do some editing in Screen flow. Most of the quickie tutorials I post you YouTube for AE are done entirely in Screenflow. For my Corporate work, I always record and do the rough edit in Screenflow. I render ProRez from Screenflow. There is even an option to render Lossless with Alpha that I use most of the time. About 90% of my Screenflow renders use the standard HD preset, but some of them, the ones that I specifically know that I'm going to want to push in on, are rendered at full resolution for my screen display. On my iMac Pro that can be as high as 5120 X 2880, but then again, that is only used when I need to push in on some detail.

 

If I were doing what you are doing I would invest in Screenflow, record full resolution, do my rough edit in Screenflow, if there is any need to push in on some details render those sections at full resolution, but render everything else to ProRez HD (1920 X 1080), and do all my editing and final sound mix in Premiere Pro. And keep it professional, invest in a good mic, and don't add looping music tracks. 

 

I hope this helps. There will be folks that argue for 60 fps and 4K production but with your hardware, 4K production does not make much sense, and if you send a file to YouTube that isn't UHD - 2160 (3840 X 2160) YouTube is going to only deliver an HD copy to your audience.  

 

I hope this helps. Good luck with your project. 

 

 

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Participant ,
Jul 27, 2020 Jul 27, 2020

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Thank you so much for the detailed answer! Wow!

 

Would you say this workflow is good:

 

• I create a Premiere 1920x1080 project.

• I create my After Effects opening sequence in a 1920x1080 composition.

• I export it in as a lossless file (example: QuickTime Animation).

• I import my After Effects opening sequence in my Premiere project.

• I import my 2560x1440 screen recording in my Premiere project and I scale it down to 1920x1080.

• I edit them together in my Premiere project.

• I render the final video from Premiere in Media Encoder as a H.264 YouTube 1080p file.

• I upload to YouTube.

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LEGEND ,
Jul 29, 2020 Jul 29, 2020

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Sounds good to me except I'd use QuickTime ProRes instead of QuickTime Animation in step 3.

 

But check your screen recording first to make sure that it looks good at 1920x1080. If everything looks good and readable at that size, execute this plan.

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