Never use compression in Premiere Elements 2018?

[Guest]

HI folks.  Complete newb to Premiere Elements and most Adobe editing products.  I'm trying to learn a bit more when it comes to video editing so I was playing around a bit today.  One thing I absolutely do not want is compression of either video or audio.  I just have a couple large MP4 files that I want to chop up into smaller, separate MP4 files.  I'm fine splitting and cutting and everything but when I go to export there is a slider and even the "high" setting is compressing my audio.  How do I get Elements to just cut the file where I want and export without any quality loss?  Thank you.

[Steve Grisetti]

Compression can't really be avoided. Some pros use uncompressed footage for special purposes -- but for most part it's too large and bulky use. Imagine video that's like 50 to 100 gigabytes per hour!

In fact, if you're starting out with MP4s, your video is already compressed. And, if you run your video through a video editor, it's going to get compressed again. It really can't be avoided. And thankfully it's not going to cause a noticeable loss in quality.

You can probably avoid compressing your audio if you create a custom output preset that uses PCM 44.1 k audio. But there's just no reason to try to create a fully uncompressed video workflow unless you're shooting a Hollywood movie on a camera system that would preclude you're editing in a program like Premiere Elements.

Besides, even if you did keep your video uncompressed, what would you play it on? Virtually all video players are designed to play compressed video.

[Guest]

Right.  I'm aware the video is already compressed which is more frustrating.  Why would you want to compress an already compressed video file any further?  It seems that all these products just want to compress something already further for some reason.  I would think if you wanted to do something simple like cut up a large MP4 into smaller MP4s you wouldn't need to do any compression as you're not altering the video any, you're just splitting it up.  Is there really nothing that can do that?  Thanks for your reply.  I appreciate you taking the time.

[Bill Sprague]

What you are asking for is usually called "smart rendering".  Try reading or Googling about "smart rendering video editor".   Premiere Elements does not do it.  One program that usually comes up is called "TMPGEnc MPEG Smart Renderer".  If not used it but, others have written in various forums that it works to edit clips without any re-encoding.

Good luck with your projects!