Loss of smoothness as soon as I drop 4k 60fps footage onto Premiere Elements 2020 timeline

[Stuart21888217c5zs]

Hi,

I hope you can help me please.

After upgrading the ios on my Macbook, I also then had to update from an old version of Premiere Pro, which had become unsupported. Not wanting to spend loads of money just to edit occasional holiday videos, I went for Premiere Elements 2020. Since doing so, I have struggled to find a way of editing 4k 60fps footage from both my GoPro 10 and my iPhone X without degradation of the fps resulting in a loss of smoothness of the footage.  It seems that the raw footage itself is perfectly smooth when viewed in QuickTime Player and also after converting it using Handbrake (in a format that maintains 60fps), which it seems I have to do just to be able to import the footage into Premier Elements 2020. It even seems fine when viewed from the Project Assets window after importing it. However, as soon as I drop it onto my timeline and view it in the main window, it degrades to a very unsmooth state, certainly significantly less than 60 fps, despite me selecting a project setting of AVCHD 1080p 50fps (the highest fps I could find) and also having rendered the timeline. Having invested in the latest GoPro so I could get the best quality possible when watching back on YouTube on a large TV, I'm finding it really painful watching any moving footage, especially something like skiing where reasonably high fps is crucial. 

Am I using an incorrect project setting? I must be doing something wrong, as I surely shouldn't have to accept that this is the best quality I can get from Premiere Elements 2020. Please help!

[Steve Grisetti]

If you want to edit 4K video at 60 fps natively, you'll need to use a different program. Premiere Elements doesn't edit 4K video at 60 fps.

[Stuart21888217c5zs]

Thanks for your prompt reply Steve. Much appreciated.

That's really disappointing to learn though.

I don't understand why it has a option in Project Settings for AVCHD 1080p 60fps, if it can't achieve it.

What is the best fps it can produce?... and is the above the best setting to use?

[Steve Grisetti]

Are you trying to edito 4K 60p video or 1080p60?

[Stuart21888217c5zs]

Hi Steve, I’m trying to edit 4k 60fps footage from both a GoPro 10 and an iPhone X Pro.

Thanks

Sent from my iPhone

[Steve Grisetti]

So, yes, you can edit 1920x1080 at 60p. But Premiere Elements will downsample 3840x2160 4K 60p to 30 fps.

That's a limitation of the program.

[Stuart21888217c5zs]

Okay thanks for your response Steve. I guess I will just have to find another program to use, as 30fps is too painful to watch moving video on.  In this age of 4k HD high quality GoPros, mobile phones & large screen TVs, etc., I can't really believe that Adobe think that 30fps is good enough, so I guess I will have to vote with my feet. Disappointing that I paid for a product that doesn't deliver decent quality.

Thank you for your kind assistance though.

[Ann Bens]

You are missing the point. It downsamples on the timeline in order to get playback otherwise you would have none with such highly compressed footage. Its not just the software you also need horsepower. What are your comp specs?

[Bill Sprague]

If you've had the program for less than 30 days, you can get a full refund.  That said, 4K at 30 fps has been a reliable standard for years.   4K at 60fps, or higher, comes from only a few cameras.   Be sure you test trial versions of NLEs on your computer with your high frame rate footage.  Ann's point about having strong hardware is on point.

[Ann Bens]

Did some testing, may all boil down to the codec used.

[Ann Bens]

I am guessing Elements is not optimized for all H.264 and H.265 codec flavors that are floating around.

[Stuart21888217c5zs]

Thanks for all of your comments guys.

I believe Handbrake is the suggested app to convert GoPro10 & iPhone, before dropping it into Elements. Is there any particular spec./codec you can suggest I convert it to, so I can maintain 60fps on my outputs, or at lease 30fps without the movement appearing jerky?

[Ann Bens]

Handbrake has but two wrappers: mkv and mp4. Elements does not support mkv so its mp4.

I would set up and custom preset for your footage. Its trial and error: see what will work best in Elements.

[Stuart21888217c5zs]

Okay, thanks Ann. I'll see how I go. I might try iMovie too.

[Ann Bens]

Might be a better choice.

[Ann Bens]

After upgrading OS I would reinstall Elements.

There should be a setting for 1080p60. Look under ntsc.

Gopro and Iphone both produce high compressed footage, which means is a pita to edit especially on a not so powerfull machine.

Please post media info on the iphone and gopro.: MediaInfo 

In all honesty, If I was coming from Pro I would have gone for fcp on a mac.