Improve resolution/quality of my video

[lizpify]

Hi, I've just completed a 50 sec promo clip for a client. it was put together using footage from my canon 5D, some .MOV clips people sent me, and various stills.

some stills were maybe not so high quality, I'd have to go back and check them. Could this affect the overall possible render quality? It is destined for client's FB page and website. I've tried different settings for export but the video remains slightly blurry, esp when maximised on screen. Tried 'match sequence settings' which gives me MPEG Preview 568x320 24fps, progressive (to match source) and all options greyed out. This gave me a tiny blurry 16MB file. Unusable really.

Then I tried H.264 either custom or match source medium bit rate which gave me another tiny file 18MB

then I tied MP4 which tried to render at 15 fps and ended up around 1MB.

Can anyone point me to anything I can study to learn more as I really don't know what I'm doing.

Last project was all footage and still from my 5D and same around 50 secs in duration. it took ages to render and ended up 204MB file! Clear as a bell...

now I'm trying H.264 match source High Bit rate which says it will be 61MB.

Do you think these issues are all to do with mixing and matching random stills and footage? need to learn more about this.

meanwhile client is saying it's too blurry

But my bottom task bar is sitting too high and no matter what I try I can't reach the button to Queue Aaagh!

Any help or advice appreciated

[Richard M Knight]

What are the sequence settings,568x320 seems very small for 5D footage.

[SAFEHARBOR11]

Proper Sequence Settings are critical when starting a New Project. Having this set incorrectly is setting up for failure at the end, as you have found. Your 5D footage is likely 1080p or 720p, which would be 1920x1080 or 1280x720 respectively, and likely 29.97 frames per second (proper video is never 15fps).

What likely happened is that the first piece of media that you added to the new timeline sequence was the 568x320 video clip (very low quality) and Premiere matched the sequence settings to that poor footage. Everything that followed was "dumbed down" to that quality unfortunately.

Right-click a 5D clip in the Project Bin and select Properties to see what the resolution ought to be for the Sequence. What you can do is drag your 5D clip onto the "New Item" button, just left of Trash Can, to create a new matching Sequence (you may have to expand the window to the right to see all the icons at bottom). Then go back to the original sequence and do "Ctrl + A" to Select All, then go to new sequence you made and "Ctrl + V" to Paste All. This will effectively move your entire edited timeline to a "proper" sequence. You may need to re-do some titles, scale some media to fit, etc., but this is probably the best route to use to salvage what you have.

Then when exporting, never use "Match Source". Decide how you want to deliver and choose an appropriate format and preset, just for example "H.264" and "YouTube 720p 29.97".

There other alternatives to consider. Let's say the 5D footage is 1080p, but you have a bunch of other footage to use that is SD quality - or worse. Then maybe compromise and work in a 720p sequence - the 1080p clips will be reduced some, but will still look great at 720p, then the lower quality material does not have to be blown up quite as much going to 720p versus 1080p. In any case, make sure that the frame rate matches the primary footage (the 5D clips). Changing frame rates can really do a number on the final quality!

Thanks

Jeff Pulera

Safe Harbor Computers

[lizpify]

Thank you so much for your help. Much appreciated. Will try the above and be more aware and careful next time! Thanks again for taking the time to reply with this info...

[lizpify]

Ok Jeff you are so right...the 5D footage is 1920 x 1080, 23.976 fps. So I did exactly what you said and have been able to create a new sequence with those settings . There was one clip sent to me to be included (they filmed it themselves as they are too far away for me to go there) and THAT is the culprit - 568 x 320! wow what a great thing to learn.

as far as the stills go I rclicked 'set to frame size' and all but one has resized ok....but we'll see how they look. (So what size Jpeg would you recommend to be a still in 1920x1080 sequence around 500KB - 2 MB?)

I can recreate the text intro and outro. So pleased to learn this.

One quick question ( and I'll check the tutorials) how do I change it to be 720? I tried changing in Sequence > Sequence settings>and tried typing in 1280 x 720 and it said ...you now, 'be careful ALL your previews will be deleted' so I did not change it.

Any advice on that?

Anyway it means heaps to me thanks

[Peru Bob]

lizpify wrote:

I tried changing in Sequence > Sequence settings>and tried typing in 1280 x 720 and it said ...you now, 'be careful ALL your previews will be deleted' so I did not change it.

Any advice on that?

Preview files are the files used for playback on the timeline.  They can be safely deleted because they will automatically be recreated when you play a clip on the timeline.

[lizpify]

ok thanks for that Peru Bob. So if I have 1920x1080 footage from my 5D camera, and another smaller clip at 568x320; I could create a new sequence, set it at 1280x720 in the sequence settings, and that would reduce my footage and it will blow the smaller clip up to 720....I can let the previews be deleted because more will auto be generated...is this right? I am happy to try this anyway. There's no harm done. Meanwhile I am learning heaps about this for the future. thanks again guys

[Peru Bob]

lizpify wrote:

.I can let the previews be deleted because more will auto be generated...is this right?

Yes.

[dgwallace]

Thank you so much, Jeff. I know it's five years later, but this helped me. I was pulling my hair until I found your answer. 

All the best!

[Alinaca]

I found this trick, very useful:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/any-tips-for-improving-quality-of-low-res-vi...