Adobe Premiere Elements 12 - video output quality

[descotes]

Hi,

I came back from vacation and I put some files into Adobe Premiere 12 to edit them together to make one video of my vacation.  I use a Canon Vixia HF 200 camera and also a GoPro Hero 3+

When I edit the video in the software it looks clear.  When I exported it to an Mp4 it looks awful.  Not clear at all.

I want to keep the edited version on my computer and have it as a file to be able to watch or download to a DVD or another up to date format in the future. 

Can someone help (in layman's terms) and tell me what output I should be using to get a better quality video?  I'm technically challenged so if you have questions I can try to help.

Thanks in advance

Stacy

[Bill Sprague]

The best quality comes from when you match the format of the best clips with the settings for the project and make output settings to match.  In other words, keep it the same from start to finish. 

We may have to get a little "techy" to figure out the record settings of your two cameras.  Depending on what they are, it might be part of why the output file looks less clear.

Based on what you wrote about the clarity of the video in the project, I will make the guess that it is your output settings that aren't as good as they could be.

I have two questions:

1.  What are your output settings choices?

2.  You wrote that you want to keep the edited version on your computer.  Keeping the software project on your computer and the output file on your computer are two different things.  Is it the output file you want to keep?

Bill

[descotes]

Thanks for the reply

The output setting choices are all the ones on Adobe Premiere 12 (if I'm understanding you correctly):

Adobe Flash Video

MPEG

AVCHD

XAVC-S

AVI

Windows Media

Quicktime, Image and Audio

But then there's options under all those under Presets

Yes I  meant the output file.

[Bill Sprague]

You are going to have to help me a little because it has been a few years since I used version 12 and the output interface screens have changed.

Memory serves that the best HD output choices are under AVCHD.  Can you remind me what those choices are?

I'm trying to keep this in "layman" language but we are looking for words like "H.264" and "MP4". 

[descotes]

Under that one is

M2T - H264 1440x1080i 25

M2T - H264 1440x1080i 30

M2T - H264 1440x1080p 24

then there is the same but 1920x1080

M2T - HD 720P 24, 50 and 60

then theres the same list but with MP4 in the front of them