P: Max Render Quality - not functioning

[Brice5C88]

Exports run as normal with Max Render Quality selected, but it has no decernable affect on quality of output. Primary use case is exporting UHD sequences at HD. The sequences contain some assets that are upscaled in motion settings on the timeline and then subsequently downscaled as part of the export. Previously using Max Render Quality has functioned similar to AE's continous rasterization and subsequently exports of upscaled-then-downscaled source material show no quality loss compared with the original source file. However, in the current version there is a noticable quality drop as if Max Render Quality has not been checked.

Premiere Pro Version 23.5.0 (Build 56)

Media Encoder Version 23.5.0 (Build 51)

MacOS Monterey Version 12.4

Mac Pro (2019)
Processor 3.2 GHz 16-Core Intel Xeon W
Memory 192 GB 2933 MHz DDR4
Startup Disk Macintosh HD
Graphics AMD Radeon Pro Vega Il 32 GB

[moervx]

Hey @Wes Howell,

I have done a test here, along with test files:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-bugs/max-render-quality-not-functioning/idc-p/13985699#M...

I've added 2024-05-08_Prem_MaxQ_Bug.zip, which includes project files for Premiere 22 and 24(latest update).

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11u2D_6vp5KQ44dUDoGU8m5ZfiMXT6JTR

Export settings were always "Match Source High Bitrate" with only changing Resolution to 1080p and toggling Max Render Quality depending on the test.

Note that in Premiere, the image is always sharp - differences can only be observed in the final file.

The only export that was sharp was the export from Premiere 22 with Maximum Render Quality enabled.

Thanks a lot for looking into this!

[Tranquil_Cosmos157F]

I'm sure Wes will get to the bottom of this. But here's my thinking around this. Some of it may be obvious to some of you, but not to everyone. 

1.  Maximum Render Quality (MRQ) does nothing when the timeline does not have a red render bar. When it's red, it might, but you can't be sure until you know what effects are used.
2.  MRQ only works when a frame is rendered on the CPU (which will happen if you're suing a non-GPU-accelerated effect, even though GPU acceleration is on). 
3.  MRQ in the timeline has no influence on the export, only on the preview.
4.  To get MRQ on the export, it needs to be ticked in Export Settings
5.  As is the case in the timeline, it will do nothing for frames rendered on the GPU in your export either
6.  High Quality Playback in the Program Monitor will get you the closest to what the output will be
7.  Every timeline in Premiere Pro has an "output". So putting an UHD clip or sequence in an HD sequence will output HD, not UHD resolution, no matter what you do. This has not changed since Premiere Pro CS 5.5, AFAIK. 
8.  There's no equivalent to Collapse Tranformation from After Effects (same button as Continuously Rasterize) in Premiere Pro
9.  When you're scaling clips or sequences, some sort of re-sampling and anti-aliasing will have to be done
10.  Scaling more than once will introduce more re-sampling and more anti-aliasing
11.  H.264 will soften edges a bit more than ProRes will

For troubleshooting purposes, I'd love to see a high-res screen recording of the whole process, with different versions of Premiere Pro and the same sources. A sample export file from those different versions that shows the difference would also be great. 

[moervx]

Here's a screen recording of the process in Premiere 2022. Comparisons are at the end.

https://streamable.com/btaq04

A screen recording of Prem 24 would look the same, but with all exports looking blurry.

[Brice5C88]

I can confirm having reviewing the @moervx 's very helpful recording this is exactly how I experience it.

@Tranquil_Cosmos157F Thank you for the extra insight, this is really interesting. Perhaps most interesting to me is the fact that I'm sure a lot of users of 'Max Render Quality' – like myself – appear to have been using primaritly for an unintended side affect of somehow accidenrtly replicating the Collapse Tranformation from After Effects. If the original engineers did not have this planned as a feature, have we been using a bug all this time? 🤔😆

[Tranquil_Cosmos157F]

Sorry, all email notifications from community.adobe.com ended up in my spam folder. Now your screen recording is no longer available, so I have not seen it. 🥲

When you say "A screen recording of Prem 24 would look the same, but with all exports looking blurry." - that's an assumption, and I'd love to see that version in the recording too. When we see the whole UI in the video, we might spot a small detail that you didn't think of that's set differently, or a default setting that's been changed in the newer version.

When it comes to bugs, never assume. 😊

[moervx]

Hey @Tranquil_Cosmos157F,

here's a reupload:

https://streamable.com/icwvvo

Also added it here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/11u2D_6vp5KQ44dUDoGU8m5ZfiMXT6JTR

"ScreenRecording_Prem22.mp4"

[Alex367466572b5i]

@moervx Select the software engine in the project settings and in the export settings. And MRQ works in v24.3.

[moervx]

@Alex367466572b5i 

I just checked, and I can confirm that setting the project renderer to "software only" restores MRQ's original functionality.

However, this wouldn't be a viable workaround for us as it dramatically increases render times.

It might help find the root of the issue, though. Thanks!

[Tranquil_Cosmos157F]

I  have finally downloaded the project and assets, and I can confirm that H.264 export is softer in the 2024 versions. Exporting a ProRes file WILL obey the MRQ setting, and export a crispy clear file. Using that file to export an H.264 file will result in a crispy H.264 file. 

So something in the H.264 export is broken in the 2024 versions. It doesn't do its MRQ (or better, with hardware rendering) thing when Hardware Encoding is selected.

Please fix, Adobe!

[Kevin-Monahan]

Hello @Brice5C88,

Thanks for the information you have provided so far, especially about the computer. @moervx, thanks for providing those test files.

I hope with this info the team can repro your issue and fix it ASAP.

Thanks,
Kevin

[Alex367466572b5i]

@Kevin-Monahan 
Todd Kopriva: "So, scaling using CUDA can be better. And faster. In some tests done here, scaling was more than 40 times faster on the GPU than on the CPU at maximum quality.
When Premiere Pro is just using the CPU for the processing of scaling operations, it uses the following scaling methods:
- playback: bilinear.
- paused: Gaussian low-pass sampled with bilinear.
- high-quality export (Maximum Render Quality off): Gaussian low-pass sampled with bilinear.
- Maximum Render Quality export: variable-radius bicubic.
The variable-radius bicubic scaling done on the CPU is very similar to the standard bicubic mode in Photoshop, though the Premiere Pro CS5 version is multi-threaded and optimized with some SSE instructions. Even with these optimizations, it is still extremely slow. For high-quality scaling at faster-than-real-time processing, you need to use a CUDA card.
When Premiere Pro CS5 is using CUDA on the GPU to accelerate the processing of scaling operations, it uses the following scaling methods:
- playback: bilinear.
- paused: Lanczos 2 low-pass sampled with bicubic.
- export: Lanczos 2 low-pass sampled with bicubic.
For export, scaling with CUDA is always at maximum quality, regardless of quality settings. (This only applies to scaling done on the GPU.) Maximum Render Quality can still make a difference with CUDA-accelerated exports for any parts of the render that are processed on the CPU. Over time, we are working on reducing the list of exceptions to what can be processed on the GPU."

Where does GPU acceleration go all the time? Where is the high-quality hardware scaling? To export ProRes and get a 2-fold increase in speed, you need to turn off the video card, although it should not work there.
And there are dozens of such nuances, an ordinary user will not constantly test it.
There is no methodology for what works and how. Puget Systems does not test such things, and there are no more literate bloggers.
Some unanswered questions.

[Alex367466572b5i]

@R Neil Haugen 
That is, 10 years ago, the GPU skylink worked on Lanczos 2, and now 10 years later only the CPU and only "variable-radius bicubic".
Yes, and you don't need a GPU, it was in CS5... everything will be rendered by CPU.

[Kolja32358147ryxe]

Even in the new 2025 version of Premiere Pro, this bug is still not fixed.

[jamieclarke]

Updating Status