HELP! My in-timeline rendered footage becomes grainy/ artifacty

[antncook]

I'm experiencing an odd issue I've never ran into before. I'm editing photos and video in a timeline. When the assets are unrendered and I play, they look amazing (note all shot at lowest ISO - super clean images). BUT once I render the timeline in project, it looks super grainy/ artifacty. When I export the video (exporting at ProRes 422) it's somewhere in between the two in terms of noise. My timeline sequence was created from Sony XAVC 4K / .MP4 clip using New Sequence From Clip. The sequence setting that PR defaulted to from Sequence From Clip was RED Cinema oddly enough. Even so, I've changed the sequence settings and nothing is different. My monitors are all set to best/ HQ preview etc. Please see the attached screenshots and look at the noise/ artifacting in the rendered vs unrendered versions. Halpmehplz! 

[R Neil Haugen]

Please ... upload images with the picture icon so they appear in your post directly. Linking an image, requiring everyone to download the file to view it ... isn't particularly "friendly" for quick work.

As to the auto-sequence settings and their names ... Premiere looks at the first clip to be dropped on a timeline panel, and notes the specs ... frame-size/rate/audio ... and runs down the list of sequence presets in computer alpha-numeric order and the first one it gets to that matches, done. So the "name" of the preset is irrelevant, only the specs are.

The issue about "when I render" is clearly because the preset set for your sequence for previews is a small low-quality format/codec. The included preview presets are designed for format/codecs that compute (render) fast and "light". NOT for image quality.

So ... take control of your work. SET the preview for the sequence if you want a preview that looks "perfect" rather than just plays fast and easy.

Include screengrabs of the image from the timeline and from exports re-imported and ALSO shown on the the timeline within Premiere. Plus the complete export dialog box.

Neil

[antncook]

Thanks for the response!!! So, I did not know that was how the auto-sequence setting worked however, I changed it to other codecs and it's still behaving the same way. I pulled a screengrab like you recommened. When I captured on the unrendered section vs the rendered video preview section of the timeline, the screengrabs aren't grabbing the artifacting issue.

I recoreded a video of what's happening (what I should've done in the first post). You'll probably need to set the preview to best quality and full screen it to see it best. Look where the roof meets the sky, trees, deck posts, pavement...that's where you can really see the issue. Here's my export settings which has always been great prior to this.

When I export using ProRes, the issue is still occuring but looks more like grain instead of artifacting like how it looks in project. When I render the exported footage on the timline, it's doing the same thing but looking much worse. So apparently the same issue is effecting it. The screengrabs again aren't capturing the artifacting. 

The same is happening for all clips (a variety of stills, video and various codecs) on my timeline. Also...my com specs:

[SAFEHARBOR11]

Per Neil, please actually grab the image from video, and not a screen shot of interface. Use this "camera" button to get full-size video frame as a still image format

[R Neil Haugen]

In your Sequence settings, by going in and setting them to Custom at the top drop-down, you can then set the render/preview format-codec and specs. I would suggest doing that for the render artifacts and such in the timeline.

It can be very difficult to see such things from say looking at Vimeo or YouTube compared to sitting at your computer.

Another potential area of trouble ... is your monitor's refresh rate. Colorists, in order to see the image without induced artifacting, always want monitors that can show at precise frame-rates or double the frame-rate. A monitor refreshing at say 72hz playing 30fps media can at times be giving you artifcacts that aren't in the file.

Neil