Export size.

[Muhammad27670940he9m]

Hello guys when I export video its size is smaller than estimated file size showed by software. I even tried Adobe meida encoder but its still not working.

[PECourtejoie]

Hi, can you describe the filesizes you see? What are the settings of the actual footage, and of the exported files, and the bitrate and encoding settings?

[Muhammad27670940he9m]

These are screen shots of all I also tried software encoding instead of hardware, but problem is still there.

[Ann Bens]

It is what it is: estimated.

Filesize is determined by bitrate x duration.

Post screenshots: sequence settings, clip properties, export settings.

[Muhammad27670940he9m]

These are screen shots of all I also tried software encoding instead of hardware, but problem is still there.

[Ann Bens]

Dont need to post everything twice.

Export looks fine to me: vbr is used so yes end result can differ.

[neil wilkes]

I'm totally with Ann on this one - she is absolutely correct.

The file size estimate you see is what the encoder expects it would be if the targetted bitrate was used throughout. I suspect that if you tried a CBR encoding you would get the file size guessed at - sorry, estimated at.

Can I ask what the purpose of a single pass VBR is though, please? It makes no sense to me so I may be missing something here and am thus curious to know what....

[PECourtejoie]

I think that the one pass VBR is the default if we want hardware acceleration.

[R Neil Haugen]

Correct. No 2-pass process can do hardware acceleration for H.264/5 encoding in any software I know of.

And for most purposes 2-pass, as Jim Simon used to say, just gives you a longer coffee break.

Now ... for best quality, a lot of the time software encoding is slightly to notably better. Speed and decent Q, or best Q? It's often a pick one situation.

Neil

[PECourtejoie]

You got me thinking, @R Neil Haugen I'll look for comparative tests, but I guess it also depends on the entire production, from capture to edit to render...

[R Neil Haugen · Accepted solution]

I've been around people who tested this to the nth degree ... exporting with different settings and putting the export on the upper track one time, lower track the next ... then going into the blend modes to get that black image where only the different pixels appear.

Just to see how many pixels are different in different exports.

And then ... done the same thing ... but after export/import, export/import for maybe three generations, to see how much difference occurs and where in the image it will occur. This is an easy enough thing for anyone to test.

The most common conclusions were, for a single generation of a good quality original file, 1-pass at medium to better bitrate could actually go a couple generations with not too much change.

So for basic outputs of "normal" media files, 1-pass may well work for 2-3 generations with a decent bitrate.

Though ... something with a lot of deep dark and shaded but not black areas, and/or near-white subtly shaded areas, would suffer in a second gen notably, due to the nature of H.264/r compression practices. Especially at medium to lower bitrates.

So a darker or more contrasty image may be better suited for a 2-pass encode with higher bitrate to begin with.

And I know of folks who really know which "level" and rate and i-frame settings can work to get a lot of compression yet keep better image Q than another setting at similar overall bitrates. My brain however starts glassing over in those discussions ... 😉

Neil

[PECourtejoie]

And now you spare me the trip to that rabbit hole! Thank you.

@Muhammad27670940he9m is your issue solved by the previous comments? Do not hesitate to mark the best answers as correct to help others.

[Muhammad27670940he9m]

Yes I got that, thanks for helping me.