In PE18 quality issue with exported H.264

[steve88man]

I am exporting some edited AVI DV interlaced video to H.264 format and seeing "stuttering" in the encoded video. Every 30-60 seconds I will see frames jump back and forth for 5 to 10 frames. It seems to happen in random places and doesn't necessarily follow a lot of motion in the video. The settings I am using are:

"same as source" checked for frame rate, width/height, field order, aspect, tv standard, profile, level

"render at maximum depth" checked

VBR 2-pass

Target bit rate: 4 mbps

Max bit rate: 17.5 mbps

keyframe distance: not checked

Time interpretation: FrameSampling

I am using Windows Media Player to view the video. I have tried playing the video on a 2nd computer without a graphics card and I see the same issue. I think the graphics card may be used during encode but I don't know how to disable that to experiment.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[Steve Grisetti]

By PE 18, I assume you mean Premiere Elements 2018. There is no version 18 of the program.

What are you project settings (as listed under Project Settings under the Edit menu)?

When you first added a clip of your video to your timeline, did you see a yellow-orange 'render' line above the video along the top of the timeline? This line indicates that you have not got your project settings set to match your video -- which will result in a poor quality output.

Also what model of camcorder were you AVIs captured from and how? Was it miniDV footage captured over a FireWire connection?

[steve88man]

Yes it is version 2018.

Project settings: DV NTSC (widescreen) preset.

Yes I see the yellow line just beneath the timelime on some of my clips. I used "reinterpret footage" to correct an aspect ratio difference (1.21 vs 1.18 due to overscan I think) and the yellow line went away but the problem continued.

The footage showing the problem is originally captured by Windows utility from MiniDV camcorder via firewire, however it was converted at some point to .WMV file and the interlace was removed. So maybe that is the issue. But shouldn't PE re=interlace the video if asked to generate DV from a progressive source?

I have noticed that VBR 1-pass output or CBR output does not show the problem, only VBR 2-pass. Also if I change the output field order setting to "progressive", then I don't see the issue. So I guess I have some workarounds but it would be nice to understand the problem better. I'll have to watch some longer samples of the output to make sure these workarounds completely eliminate the problem.

Thanks for your help.

[Steve Grisetti]

Since you're no longer working with the original DV-AVIs, I'm not sure what modifications have been made to your video files that will affect how they edit and what quality of video they will produce in Premiere Elements. The fact that you're seeing a render line above the clips means that Premiere Elements isn't sure how to digest the files.

I'm not sure what to recommend.

You can try opening one of your video files in the free download MediaInfo. In MediaInfo set the View menu to Text and copy and paste the report that it generates to this forum.

It's possible that, once we see what your video files are made of, we can recommend a course of action. But, without that information, we're just shooting in the dark.

[steve88man]

I noticed a couple strange things in the mediainfo:

- Scan type is "mixed"

- The display aspect ratio says 3:2 however it is really widescreen. It displays as widescreen (undistorted) in PE and Windows Media Player.

Since I have some workarounds this is a low priority unless you see something obvious. My habit is to keep the unmodified capture files but I was working with a few clips that had been converted for some reason.

For feedback to the product I would say it should provide more information about what is wrong with the source and/or refuse to convert it, but not silently convert it with quality issues.

General
Complete name                            : C:\Users\steve\Videos\OLD Videos\No Network Backup\Raw\Camcorder\CPR\CPR Remy 2008-07-15 2008_07_19_11_09_17.wmv
Format                                   : Windows Media
File size                                : 731 MiB
Duration                                 : 24 min 33 s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Constant
Overall bit rate                         : 4 163 kb/s
Maximum Overall bit rate                 : 4 163 kb/s
Movie name                               : CPR Remy 2008-07-15
Encoded date                             : UTC 2008-07-19 17:09:17.106
Writing application                      : Windows ® Import Video 6.0.6001.18000
WM/DateTaken                             : 128606185924000000
WM/WMRVEncodeTime                        : 633517417924000000
WM/VideoWidth                            : 720
WM/VideoHeight                           : 480
WM/DateAcquired                          : 128609636457220000
VMG/VideoCamera                          : Microsoft DV Camera and VCR

Video
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : VC-1
Format profile                           : Advanced@L1
Codec ID                                 : WVC1
Codec ID/Hint                            : Microsoft
Description of the codec                 : Windows Media Video 9 Advanced Profile
Duration                                 : 24 min 33 s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 4 000 kb/s
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 3:2
Frame rate                               : 29.970 (29970/1000) FPS
Standard                                 : NTSC
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Mixed
Scan order                               : Bottom Field First
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.386
Stream size                              : 702 MiB (96%)

Audio
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : WMA
Format version                           : Version 2
Codec ID                                 : 161
Codec ID/Info                            : Windows Media Audio
Description of the codec                 : Windows Media Audio 9.2 - 128 kbps, 48 kHz, stereo (A/V) 1-pass CBR
Duration                                 : 24 min 33 s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 128 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Stream size                              : 22.5 MiB (3%)

Other
Type                                     : Time code
Format                                   : WM TC
Time code of first frame                 : 00:33:11:12

[Steve Grisetti]

The conversion of these files to WMVs kind of mucks things up a bit. Aside for Windows MovieMaker, pretty much nobody edits with WMV files, and most editors don't play well with them. Premiere Elements can work with them if they match a standard video editing spec -- but yours doesn't, so you're going to compromise some quality if you use them in your project.

I'm just not sure what to recommend as a fix. If your DV-AVIs have been converted to WMVs, the damage has already been done.

Maybe someone else has some ideas.