4K 60fps - How can I reduce Youtube compression artifacts?

[travise38589766]

I've been recording 4K 60fps videos on my GoPro.  It's mostly walks and jogs on trails, nothing really wild in terms of movement. 

I edit the videos in Premiere Pro, and then export them using VBR 2-pass with a target bitrate of 75 and max of 100.  I then upload the exported video to YouTube, wait for HD Processing to finish, and view them in my browser on various computers and my 4K TV.

I'm noticing lots of compression artifacts (patches of blurriness) on YouTube, usually on distant trail surfaces, but also sometimes in the underbrush or on distant mountains.  When I am jogging, I get more artifacts than when I am walking.  Standing still is best.  So the faster I move, the more artifacts I get.

How can I decrease the compression artifacts?

Are there settings in the GoPro that can help? I'm using the GoPro's high bit rate setting, and have experimented with different levels of sharpness and other settings, but don't have a feel for which settings work best.

When exporting with Premiere Pro, is a target/max bitrate of 75/100 good for 4K 60fps, or should I go higher?  It's already taking multiple days for YouTube to finish the HD processing for my videos, so I haven't tested other bit rates.  Are there other settings in Premiere Pro I should try?

Thanks a bunch!

[YANNA26705213grl5]

Dear Travis, this is a complicated subject cause it involves so many variables. In your case I think it boils down to these things off the top of my head..

a) camera ( fps, motion involved, light available, method of capturing image ( constant frame rate vs. variable frame rate, codec used by camera, speed of processing chip info to media ( sd card etc.))

b) editing and export

c) compression used by platforms like youtube, vimeo, TV broadcast, projection, etc. ).

It gets complicated but let's start with the camera part if you don't mind me putting in my 2 cents.

Most digital cameras try to emulate film cameras, so that the shutter speed is TWICE the frame rate ( 180 degree shutter ). So shooting at 24fps would give you 1/48th second exposure time ( shutter speed ). We can dispense with white balance and ISO and F stops for now, cause those things just make up a combination of changes you can make on camera to SUIT your lighting and motion ( and depth of field ).

If you shoot with a 48th second exposure ( shutter speed ) that's kinda slow and allows you to get a lot of light cause more light is coming into lens to chip and you may not need to worry about normal outdoor lighting situations to get a decent exposure. If you move fast then the slow shutter speed with create 'blur' so most movies you watch will have slow pans and tilts to keep the image from just becoming a total blur.....hard to explain...sorry.

Now, let's say you shoot at 30fps...shutter becomes 1/60th of a second.... so now you need more light ( or higher ISO ). And if you shoot 60 fps, your shutter is 120th of a second...and you are now needing even MORE LIGHT ( or higher ISO and lower F stop ).  The problem for you in my humble opionion is you think shooting at a higher frame rate gives you a more clear picture... just cause it's faster... but that's not true.  Unless you have the light you need and the motion is restricted enough not to get blurry....

Added to that challenge of figuring out the best way to use your specific camera, you is that image stabilization stuff internally done within many cameras now... and that slows down stuff internally a LOT ....I personally would never use that with my cameras unless I had absolutely no choice.

I suggest ( I know this sounds stupid but what the heck ) you go outside in your backyard in the daytime, with your camera on a tripod so it doesn't move at all, and shoot 5 seconds of footage of anything you can shoot ( like a tree or brick wall or whatever ).

Run that through your editor and upload and see what you get.

Use 24fps, and auto exposure and white balance...and see what happens on youtube or vimeo or whatever.

good luck and merry xmas.

[travise38589766]

Thanks for the response!

I don't think motion caused the blurriness, since I wasn't moving in that second shot (where the greens got blurred).  However, maybe the camera's image stabilization (in low light) "smoothed" those green areas into single-color patches.  When moving slowly (or not at all) with a gimbal, should we turn off the camera's image stabilisation?  I guess I can try that and see how shaky it ends up.  Premiere Pro lets us fix shakiness in post, right?

Frame Rate: I've been using 60fps because 30fps looks really choppy on my TV.  I watch a lot of 4K walks on my TV, and 60fps (or sometimes 50fps) seems to be the new standard.  30fps is just too stuttery during pans, ruining the immersion.  24fps walks are even worse, bordering on unwatchable.  On my TV, at least; maybe on a phone they're fine.

Here's an example of a Prowalk Tours video with nice clean vegetation: https://youtu.be/_Q-RLQnZOHM?t=4521 -- It's recorded with a Hero 8 on a gimbal, at 4K @ 60fps.  Looks great! 

Now, why can't I get nice clean footage like that with my Hero 11, which has had 3 generations of improvements to sensors, software, etc.?

Is it because the Prowalk Tours video was recorded in bright sunlight and I had clouds?  Well, here's another Prowalk Tours video, this time recorded in cloudy conditions:  https://youtu.be/4UutcBV7TK4?t=2650 -- Again, it uses the Hero 8 (but is 50fps), and the vegetation looks fine, even as he's moving around.

Here's a link to my full video: https://youtu.be/pTCZ8HHBLTQ?t=2684 -- The sky still has a lot of blue in it, but you can see the area under the tree blurring.  By the time you get under the tree (at 44:57), the trail is a flicking mess.  It just looks like garbage.  Now, rewind the video and look at the *first* few seconds.  They look much better (in comparison) although you can see the shadows under the trees are pretty amorphous.  So why did the end of the video get so awful?  Or is there awfulness throughout the video?  I'm curious why my Hero 11 footage looks so inferior to Prowalk Tours' Hero 8 footage.

(Again, this is not a question about Premiere Pro our YouTube, but rather a question about how to improve the original footage.)

As for shutter speed, I'm not sure what I was using, since I was using Auto ISO (from 100 to 400).  Since I'm shooting at 60fps, I would want the shutter to be 1/120 sec, right?  Is that "too fast" for the cloudy conditions depicted in my video?  Would dropping to 50fps (and 1/100 sec) help significantly?  Or is that more of a European-vs-American anti-strobing technique?

Do you recommend I stop using automatic ISO and start manually specifying the shutter speed?

[travise38589766]

Watch how fuzzy the trail and distant vegetation get starting at 27:42 : https://youtu.be/pTCZ8HHBLTQ?t=1647

Here are screen grabs of the original video, and what ends up on YouTube:

https://tripalot.com/issues/img/2022-12-13-hero11-curve-original.png  (Original)

https://tripalot.com/issues/img/2022-12-13-hero11-curve-youtube.png  (YouTube)

You can see the original is a little bit blurry in the left part of the curve, and by the time Premiere Pro and YouTube do their compressing, the blurriness has gotten worse.  Before I tackle the Premiere Pro and YouTube compression, I want to try to find out how to avoid getting blurriness in the original video.

[travise38589766]

How can I get the forum to stop automatically adding YouTube thumbnails and descriptions at the bottom of my posts?

[travise38589766]

I recorded another test of the same walk yesterday, this time with the camera's motion stabilising turned off (so, "HyperSmooth" = off).  I used the same gimbal as before.

The resulting footage is very shaky.  I now need to stabilise it using Premiere Pro.  Is there an easy way to do that for long (30+ minute) clips?

Once I get it smooth I'll take a look at the resulting blurriness.  Right now it's so shaky it's uncomfortable to watch.

Another thing I notice is that everything looks slightly greenish.  Or rather, the greenish-yellow colors dominate.  It was a sunny day and I was using a white balance of 5500K.  Could that have caused the greenish bias?  Should I just use "Auto" white balance next time?  Or should I leave it 5500K and [somehow] fix the colors in Premiere Pro?

Thanks!

[YANNA26705213grl5]

Just based on your stamina to keep exerimenting will millions of ways to get the BEST video out your GoPro camera(s) the GoPro manufacturer should send you a package of their best equipment ( bodies, lenses, self leveling gimbaled steadicam, and lots of batteries and chargers ) just so they can use you in their advertising campaigns....." This person USES OUR STUFF ! "

I'm an old person who believes to test things it should be done one step at a time...so there is only one or two variables....and work from the ground up.... with that in mind you deserve all the help you can get, just due to your stamina.

I suggested the tripod thing with IS off... If you don't have a tripod use a steady surface with little bean bags ( one on bottom and one on top to get your 'frame' composition )...shoot 5 seconds, put into editor and look at result. use awb, autofocus, auto exposure , whatever you want...(at this point is doesn't matter ). THAT will be your baseline quality control... the BEST your camera can do...and what you see in editor is what you will aim for cause it won't get better than that.

just for fun read this junk.....and think about it for later on when your NEXT test will be a short 2 minute walk with handheld camera on gimbal that you own....can just walk around the block or down the street....which is my suggestion....nice smooth street....keep things simple until you get the basics down regarding what your camera can DO.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/photography/tips-and-solutions/image-stabilization-when-use-it-...

https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/video/discover/stabilize-video.html

in adobe document go to bottom and note this:
The default setting here is Stabilize, Crop, Auto-scale. This crops the moving edges and scales up the image to refill the frame. The automatic scaling is controlled by various properties in the Auto-scale section.

[travise38589766]

Hi, thanks for the info!

This testing would certainly be easier if I took short videos. However, I have very limited time in the afternoons; as soon as I finish work, I go for a jog; sometimes I bring a camera along to test while I exercise. A tripod is the last thing on my mind, since I can't see myself ever wanting to film stationary videos. I want to film in motion; it's capturing the sense of exploration that interests me.

Maybe it helps to explain my "goal state":

Are you familiar with Prowalk Tours? I hadn't heard about virtual walks until a year or so ago, when I was googling my partner's home town. Our trip there had been cancelled due to COVID, so I was looking for some videos of city to cheer her up.

While browsing through lots of amateurish, vloggy videos on YouTube, I found a very nice looking one, but it seemed short (3 minutes 54 seconds). It started off by showing her city with quick drone shots, then jumped to a map, then down to street level, then back to the map, all with music. It looked very polished, but at just under 4 minutes it seemed to cater to very short attention spans, and I wanted something more in-depth.

I was just about to click away... but then, at the one and a half minute mark, the quick cuts stopped, the music faded out, and a title appeared announcing the time of day. Huh? The camera then very slowwwwwly panned around a square, and the filmer slowwwwwly started walking around, with no cuts, no music, no talking, just natural street noises. It was so simple, and yet so new (to me at least). It was then that I noticed how long the video was: it wasn't 3 minutes 54 seconds, it was 3 hours 54 minutes!!! I skimmed through the rest of the walk and was delighted to see that it was in fact one long, uninterrupted walk through her city, and the "quick cuts" section at the beginning was just an introduction. Plus, the video had captions explaining the history of the area and occasional personal annecdotes! Immersive and educational at the same time. Wow!

I was enthralled, and after I showed it to her, so was my partner. And since then we have watched dozens of long walks, almost all of them from Prowalk Tours. Brilliant stuff!

Here's that first video I stumbled across:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q-RLQnZOHM&t=0

And it's this video quality I'm after. Nothing tricky or "cinematic"... just natural, clear visuals with smooth panning (60 Hz) for watching on a big TV. Inspired, I went through Prowalk Tours' gear list and bought a bunch of it so that I could film my own local walks and jogs with the same level of clarity.

Anyway, I've applied Warp Stabilizer to my new walk (about 38 minutes long). It took a few HOURS for Warp Stabilizer to analyze, but the end result is nice and smooth. So far the image quality looks pretty good too. Later on, the trees get thicker and the clouds come out; that's the real test!

On the downside, the project file became huge, more than 1 GB! It now takes forever to do anything in Premiere Pro, making editing a nightmare. There's too much green, but I can't be bothered to fix it becomes it takes forever to do anything! Argh!

So, how can I stabilize long clips without hindering my ability to edit?  Do I need to render the clips to new clips, and then work with those?  If so, what is the best way to do that without losing quality?

[travise38589766]

I've got my new walk up on YouTube.  This is the walk where I turned off stabilization in the camera and then used Warp Stabilizer in Premiere Pro. 

First, here's the same curve I was looking at in the previous walk:

https://youtu.be/tAapEjZrpiw?t=1436 (23:56)

Compare it to this the previous walk:

https://tripalot.com/issues/img/2022-12-13-hero11-curve-youtube.png

In the new video, the curve itself looks slightly less blurry, but the trail has lost its texture.  Also, the green looks yellowish, which is pretty gross.  I'm not sure where the yellow-green came from, but Warp Stabilizer made the project file so huge and slow that it's painful to colorize.

Also, check out the weird distortions when I go up the steps:

https://youtu.be/tAapEjZrpiw?t=2250 (37:30)

This is the same weird distortion that I see in Prowalk Tours' very first video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljudH28fomA

He calls this his "worst" video, and I'm not going to argue!  If you look at his shadow, it appears he wasn't using a gimbal, which is why he had to rely on post processing stablization.  He says he used YouTube stablization.  But I'm seeing the same weird distortion here in Premiere Pro.  Regardless, it looks very distracting, even more than the blurriness.

On the positive side, the final scene (where I stand motionless filming some trees) doesn't have the same blurring in the previous walk:

https://youtu.be/tAapEjZrpiw?t=2269 (37:47)

There *might* be ways to fix the footage, either getting rid of the "warping" distortion, or reducing that yellow tinge... but it's so painful to edit that file now that it's 1 GB in size.  And besides, that blurry, washed-out trail in front of the curve is worrisome.  Clearly, simply turning off stabilization in the camera doesn't instantly fix the blurriness. 

Here's another comparison of the raw video (before Premiere Pro) from the 2 walks:

https://tripalot.com/issues/img/2022-12-13-bench-pines.png -- first walk (camera stabilization ON)

https://tripalot.com/issues/img/2022-12-21-bench-pines.png -- second walk (camera stabilization OFF)

The colors look very different for these walks, but that could be because the first one was using Natural 10 bit color and the second one was using Flat 8 bit color.  I'm not too concerned about that.  I'm just trying to reduce blurriness.  I can see how the trail's increased constrast in the first one makes it easier for YouTube to show that texture; the second one will require me to increase contrast in order to get the rocks to stand out. 

Sigh.  There's a lot going on here.  I kinda wish I had only varied one thing instead of several, but at least I know that that warp stabilizer isn't a silver bullet.

[YANNA26705213grl5]

Training legs.. But when? - General Discussion - The Steadicam Forum

[R Neil Haugen]

This is a lot more complicated than most people assume it is starting out. Which is why Yanna's most excellent comments are well worth reading through a few times! I might suggest copying his various posts, pasting them on a blank text doc, and then printing it to read them over a few times.

I'll just pretty much restate much of what he's covered, as sometimes reading something said just a bit differently can be helpful to puzzle through a complex topic. And THIS is a very, very complex topic.

First, you have motion from moving the camera to fix. In-cam stabilization can work in some circumstances, not so much in others. Gimbals also can be of great use in this, often better than in-cam stabilization if you are walking around especially on trails or uneven terrain.

So if you choose a gimbal, of course, he better quality the gimbal, the better ... but ... it will still normally take some work on your part to figure out which settings on the gimbal give the best results.

Second ... in-cam stabilization may or may not work with use of a gimbal. You again have to test it out.

Third ... when moving the camera around, the shutter speed and type are crucial. Slower shutter speeds tend to give a "smoother" motion blur, and the "180 rule" ... shutter speed half the frame-rate ... has been an accepted fix for motion blur. Best combination for keeping some sharpness and not making the blur ... weird.

BUT ... here's where shutter type comes in, as "rolling shutter" effects happen with most modest price cameras and are obvious when panning. Part of the image is slightly off-set from the rest. "Jello" and such description come with this.

For solving that, you have to either slow the panning rate dramatically or raise the shutter speed.

And again, you have to test it. While using whatever stabilization you use.

I know of people that have full routines written down. X camera on Y gimbal, walking speed, no in-cam stabilization, shutter speed 180* (twice the frame-rate: 1/48 for 24fps recording), no Warp; but by slow jogging they need 90* shutter (4x frame rate, 1/96 for a 24fps clip) and Z settings in Warp.

With a different camera, they'll normally have a different setting.

And to make it even more complex, a longer lens will need all of this different than a shorter lens.

This is why a good DP ... director of photography ... can be a well-paid position at times. Getting the image quality (IQ) desired can become flipping complicated, requiring both experience in choosing and access to the right tools for this task.

Walking slowly across a meadow of fairly short grass with a wide lens will need very different setup than moving quickly down a trail with a lot of dense foliage and a longer lens. Or even the same wider lens, for that matter.

And then in post, knowing how to setup Warp ... especially cutting the clips up and applying in short bits can be of great help, but knowing how to go smoothly from one short bit to the next ... takes practice, drill, experience.

How and when a bit of the shutter angle control in one of the Premiere effects might help ... or not. This is how the editor earns their pay.

It ain't easy ...

Neil

Neil

[travise38589766]

Thanks a bunch!

I think I need to slow down and start being more scientific about this, focusing on one variable at a time. I've been very spontaneous about filming recently, just grabbing a camera if it looks like a nice day. If I'm in a hurry I grab the pocket 2 (which is super-convenient); if I have a few minutes to prepare I'll grab a GoPro and perhaps a gimbal. And then I usually just start filming as soon as I get to a certain point on the trail, without really thinking about the settings. It's only when I get home and look at the footage that I start thinking about how the variables (camera, lighting, walking vs jogging, etc.) influence the quality. Clearly, this approach is not working because my videos seem to be getting worse rather than better.

Gimbal/Movement:

The Pocket 2 has its built-in gimbal. It's super convenient, and pretty good at capturing details, but recently I've been noticing unnatural "flickering" of colors in the sky, sand, and other low-contrast surfaces. The flickering is distracting.

Here's a comparison of the Pocket 2 and the GoPro Hero 10 (without gimbal):

https://youtu.be/SSiNLXPvHng?t=1243 (20:43)

As you can see, the Pocket 2 has much better detail (compare the vegetation and distant mountains), but its sand has weird greenish streams and the sky flickers. The GoPro is blurry, but its colors look better and more stable.

I used similar settings in both cameras, but because the GoPro lacked a gimbal, my conclusion was that the GoPro's blurriness came from the lack of a gimbal. Therefore, my next few tests focused on GoPro + gimbal, like this one, where I was jogging in the same area:

https://youtu.be/tZxWE_0nxN0?t=1781 (29:41)

The vegetation is slightly better than in the split screen video, but there's still blurriness in the densest parts. The trail in the immediate foreground looks good, but it gets blurry in the distance. However, I was jogging, so in my next tests I decided to walk instead, and that's where we get to the videos I'm been posting recently. It doesn't seem like walking eliminates all blurriness. And in the case of the 2022-12-13 video, standing still didn't even eliminate the blurriness.

So it looks like a gimbal helps, and moving more slowly helps, but I still need to figure out how to improve the camera settings, even standing still, which I think is the point you guys were trying to make!

Shutter Speed:

On my last walk, I tried manually changing the shutter speed to 1/120 (since I was filming at 60 Hz), but the image looked way too bright, washed out. Unwatchable. So I reverted to "Auto" and the over brightness went away.

If I'm to manually set the shutter speed (to 1/120 I presume), how do I compensate for the extra brightness? Do I need to lower EV Comp?

Also, why would jogging benefit from further doubling the shutter speed? If the best shutter speed is half the frame rate, then why would you ever want to go faster?

And what is "Auto" doing? Why wouldn't it automatically select 1/120, if that's the clearly best shutter speed for 60 Hz?

Lens:

Not really an issue with either the GoPro or the Pocket 2. Yes, I have other lenses for them, but they only slightly magnify the view (mostly to help digital stabilisation) and I almost never use them.

Warp:

The entire 30+ minute video is shaky, so I have to warp the whole thing, which takes hours and makes the project file so huge that every little edit takes minutes to execute, resulting in a horrible editing experience. If I'm to rely on stablization in post, then I'll need a different plugin or app for smoothing things out. At this point I'd rather go back to using stabilization in the camera.

GoPro Settings:

Here's the GoPro settings I used in the most recent walk:

Resolution: 4K
Frame Rate: 60 fps
Virtual Lens: Linear
Color: 8 bit, Flat
White Balance: 5500K
Bit rate: High
EV Comp: -0.5
Min ISO: 100
Max ISO: 400
Shutter: Auto
HyperSmooth: off

Is there anything that leaps out at you as a possible contributor to the blurriness?

Reference Material:

I'd love if it I could get the same video quality as Prowalk Tours, since his videos are what inspired me to get most of the same gear.

Here's a scene he filmed in April 2021, in a park:

https://youtu.be/bibZZXvk-UE?t=1257 (20:57)

The green looks natural rather than yellowish, so I'm guessing he was using a different white balance, or did better color correction in post. There's lots of detail on distant vegetation... but the bright trail gets blurry. So even he has "issues"... but the overall feel I get is that his camera is doing a good job capturing the details. When he turns to look down a different path (at 21:24) you can see details in the trail again, and the vegetation is holding together nicely. If you spot-check his videos I think you will see he's consistently getting good detail with his camera... which is an old Hero 8, three generations earlier than mine!

Immediate goal:

What I'm focused on now is improving the detail; I'm not so much worried about the colors. As you see in my split screen video, the tiny Pocket 2 shows that's it's possible to capture good detail while moving quickly through the local trails. My GoPros, however, are failing to match that level of detail, even with a gimbal. How is the much cheaper (and older) Pocket 2 beating the newest GoPros? And how was Prowalk Tours beating them with his "ancient" Hero 8? (I've asked him a few times over the years what settings he uses, but he hasn't shared them yet.)

Finally:

I appreciate the help! I'm sorry I keep innundating this thread with details. I'm just hoping that somewhere in all this info is a clue as to what I'm doing wrong (in terms of camera settings). Because I definitely think it's "user error"! 🙂

[travise38589766]

I just did some more tests.  One of the things I notice is that the GoPro's "Flat" color adds the yellowish tinge to the green.  I don't know how to fix that in Premiere Pro.  Any suggestions?

[R Neil Haugen]

In the curves tab, you can use the Hue v Hue to shift a color around a bit.

Neil

[YANNA26705213grl5]

as you know, motion pictures are an illusion of motion based on watching many STILL images in quick succession. If I shoot 24 fps that means I am recording 24 still images per second.

If you have a question about a certain FRAME that looks off color or blurry etc... it might be worth while to consider that posting a STILL SHOT ( frame grab or whatever you want to call it ) and instead of uploading hours and hours of videos and expecting anyone to have the time to watch them, compare them, try to figure out how to help you. Too much work time and variables.

Now, in terms of your last question ( see below )

----I just did some more tests.  One of the things I notice is that the GoPro's "Flat" color adds the yellowish tinge to the green.  I don't know how to fix that in Premiere Pro.  Any suggestions?----

the answer you got from Neil is hue vs hue curves....but you won't know how to do that and won't know how to separate ( edit ) the transition to correct that specific area of your film.

Posting a STILL IMAGE of the specific problem ( yellow tinge in this case ? ) at full HD ( as a png or something ) would give the people here some idea what you are talking about. And, in the case of someone who has the time to show you how to use something like curves hue vs. hue, would allow them to put that into the editor, show you the exact screen shots of the UI controls they used to correct that specific problem.

Your difficulty is that you are dealing with so many variables and just keep on focusing on a very basic THIS IS NOT WORKING THE WAY I WANT SO IT IS THE SAME AS MY HERO PEOPLE WHO POST REALLY BEAUTIFUL TOURS ....

Trust me, nobody can help you if you don't focus and help those who want to help you.

merry xmas

[YANNA26705213grl5]

p.s. 

I know a guy who has netflix in Atlanta...and sometimes he gets blocks of black pixels and lag when watching stuff on his TV...and that is because of the BANDWIDTH speed he is able to cache and watch .... if the cable is busy his download bandwidth slows, and he gets the problem... it is basically what YOU THINK IS YOUTUBE COMPRESSION PROBLEMS.

It's not as simple as you think...and if you don't start focusing on basics you will NEVER get this right to the point where you can be proud of what you've done because you keep throwing roadblocks in your own path.

sorry but that's my opinion. I know you can do it, but you have to take it one step at a time, just like walking on the trail.

[travise38589766]

Hi, sorry, I think I was hoping someone would recognize the problem and say "Hey, I had problems with my GoPro too and here's how I fixed them..."  I'll try to be more deliberate and considerate from now on.

I watched some coloring tutorials on YouTube yesterday.  One of them gave me an idea, which worked for me:  Instead of increasing the saturation (which makes the green even more yellow), I increased the contrast.  (Specifically, I used the "Auto" button in Basic Correction, increased Contrast to around 25, and decreased Expoure until the Luma waveform stopped bunching so much at 100.  I didn't touch anything else.)  This helped increase the color range without amplifying the yellow.  The colors look a lot more natural now.

I then got rid of the "wobble" created by Warp Stablisation by changing the Method from "Subspace warp" to "Position, Scale, Rotation" (or "Position" for one especially problematic segment).

So now I'm pretty happy with the output from the second walk (where I turned off the camera's stablisation).  It's similar in quality to some of my better videos.  However, the project file is still huge, making editing a pain.  I don't think I will ever go without in-camera stablisation again, unless Premiere Pro offers a way to stabilise long clips without making the project file huge.

[R Neil Haugen]

Hey, you're making very good progress! Editing is a complex thing to do. Shooting video is a complex thing to do. Learning one is a lot of dang hard work. Learning both simultaneously ... is even more difficult. And you're going about it correctly, spending some time to think, test, and analyze the results.

I wish more folks would do that ... ah well.  😉

Once you've used Warp on a clip, the wisest thing is to do a Render & Replace. That way you are now working with the much better stabilized details, but Warp is no longer involved, so the project file is now smaller and the exports are much faster.

Neil

[travise38589766]

Hi, I was doing well with Warp, but now have a completely different problem I'm trying to fix.  I've been using the TMPGEnc plugin to export, since it gives me cleaner video than normal H.264 (for roughly the same file size).  Unfortunately, ever since Premiere Pro version 23, all of my TMPGEnc videos are missing audio from the first clip.  I've gone into detail here:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/exporting-with-tmpgenc-plugin-audio-disappea...

This bug only affects TMPGEnc, not normal H.264...  So I'm having to re-render all my videos from the past month using normal H.264, which is time-consuming, and they don't look as good.  I suppose if/when I find out how to get the TMPGEnc rendering working again, I'll have to export (and upload) them all a third time!

What do you use to export video?  And what bit rate?  I've been using CBR 100.  Like I said, TMPGEnc H.264 CBR 100 looks better than "normal" H.264 CBR 100.  I can go up to CBR 200 or CBR 300 but then file sizes are starting to get huge.  I've recorded so many tests that I'm starting to get a little tight on disk space.

Suggestions?

[R Neil Haugen]

Why CBR? Not all frames need the same data levels, so some will have more than needed, others less in a comparative sense.

What does that plug-in use for H.264 i-frame, profile, and levels settings? If you know, you could try setting those in the H.264 in Premiere's normal H.264 format/codec settings.

You should also communicate with the support for that plug-in.

Neil

[travise38589766]

If you scroll back to the first page you'll see that I tried TMPGEnc on Averdahl's recommendation.  Somehow it creates noticeably cleaner video than similar settings in Premiere Pro, and at roughly the same file sizes.  I don't know how it manages that, and haven't drilled down into the details of it.  I was just thankful to get better video, and didn't mind paying the $75....

...However, I certainly *do* mind now, however, since I'm missing so much audio from those videos!

I chose CBR on Averdahl's recommendation as well (which you can see on the first page).  I don't mind trying something else if I can get better quality for roughly the same file size.  What do you recommend I try instead?

(I've sent a message to TMPGEnc's support, but since they haven't updated the plugin since May 2022, I'm not very optimistic about receiving a prompt reply).

If you had to guess, what do you think Prowalk Tours is using for an output bit rate?  Here's another example video to give you an idea of his quality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk8qFVgslAM

His videos are often very long, sometimes more than 4+ hours.  He uploads around one [big] video each week.  Do you think he's using a really high bit rate (possibly ProRes or Cineform), and then deleting the output file once he's uploaded it to YouTube?  Or do you think he's using a more modest format like H.264, but with settings cranked to the max?  Or something else?  How much can we deduce by looking at his videos?

(I've asked him several times over the years if he'd share his settings but so far he's keeping those cards close to his chest, which is understandable, because his channel is his job now, not just a hobby).

[R Neil Haugen]

If you can go into that plug-in without actually exporting, and just see if it shows what it is doing for i-frames, profile, and level, that would help.

Neil

[travise38589766]

Hi, Averdahl is helping me fix it.  I think the plugin doesn't like the GoPro audio format. 

I do have a video-related question: the GoPro's bitrate is 120 bps.  Does this mean I need to be exporting from Premiere using at least that bit rate (120) so that I don't lose quality?  I've been doing 100 because it was a nice round number.

[R Neil Haugen]

It always depends.

Is that for a "master" file, that is your archived high-Q version of the program, and you then make deliverables from that file? Such as a middle to upper ProRes or DNx file?

Or ... for say just a personal YouTube channel use, where ultra-high-Q isnt' needed, but something more reasonable? And H.264/5?

[travise38589766]

It's just for YouTube.  My aim is to get my GoPro-filmed walks to a quality similar to that of the Prowalk Tours videos.  I just want a nice clean look.  The target is 4K @ 60Hz, since that's what I use to watch Prowalk Tours on my TV.

[R Neil Haugen]

4k, when you want a better Q output for YT, I wouldn't tend to drop below the 120 from your input. Especially with a 60fps framerate ...

Neil