Loss of video quality after exporting

[Michael27357529md22]

I am mostly editing and exporting videos of 480p, but no matter the quality, the sharpness of the images is lower after exporting.  Even if I match the source resolution and set the Quality bar to "high" (9 Mpbs), or if I use Custom export with VBR 2 Pass and set the target bitrate to the original file with the Max bitrate double that, there is still a noticable drop of image sharpness when comparing with the original file.

There are video files that even as low as 700 Kpbs Data Rate still have great quality, resolution, and sharpness, yet after editing and exporting, even if they've been converted by Handbrake, are still losing image quality.

What am I not doing?

[Bill Sprague]

No video editor that I know of can create good video quality output when the source has low quality specifactions.  You might be asking Prenier Elements to more than it is capable of.

[Michael27357529md22]

I'm just trying to preserve the same quality that the source has, nothing more, but Premiere Elements is losing it when exporting, no matter how much video data rate I use.

[Steve Grisetti]

Bill is absolutely right. You can't add details if they aren't in the original video.

However, there are tools that do video upscaling -- which is essentially what your HDTV does when you play a DVD. It doesn't create true HD video from standard resolution but, if you're original video has pretty good quality, the HD it creates can still look pretty good.

Here's an example of a popular product.

https://www.topazlabs.com/topaz-video-ai

[Michael27357529md22]

My problem is there are details that ARE in the original video and they're being lost, even with using high video data rate when exporting.  All I want is to keep what's in the original video, and I feel like there's something I'm not doing or accounting for.

[Steve Grisetti]

Didn't you say in your first post that you're editing your video in 480p? That's standard resolution.

[Michael27357529md22]

Correct, and I'm keeping it in 480p, but what I'm getting is video that is slightly more blurred than the original version.  It loses sharpess.

[Steve Grisetti]

What are your project settings in Premiere Elements (Under the Edit menu)?

It might also be helpful to know the deep specs of your original 480p video and where it came from. Open your 480p file in the free download MediaInfo. In MediaInfo, set View to Text and then copy the text of this report and paste it to this forum.

These two pieces of information can help us figure out why your output video isn't as sharp as your original.