iPhone 11 MOV files pixelated in PP13.1.5 and after export

[Crazylykeafox]

Hello, I've shot some great mountain running footage on IPhone 11 at 120fps 1080p which looks great on phone and in PC, but not great in preview window and the sky is pixelated in the exported footage. I've sought help from a film/media professor friend of mine via text and she said my export settings looked good. She suggested I try interpreting the footage, rendering, and I reuploaded from my phone to PC and always the same result. Something is happening to cause the quality to degrade or some setting is wrong upon bringing the files into the program. The phone is set to "most comparable" not HVEC. Any ideas what might be happening? 

[Carlos Ziade]

which format are you exporting to? what are your export settings?

and what are your sequence settings inside premiere pro?

go to your file properties from inside the project panel, do 

you see 'variable frame rate detected'? if yes, try to encode 

those rushes into a constant frame rate (check which apps do so)

[Crazylykeafox]

Thanks for your reply

1. I don't see anything that says "variable frame rate" on any of my file properties

I'm attaching pics of 

- sequence settings

- export settings

Again just to reiterate, my friend who is a full maker was asking me if it looks good in the playback video and it doesn't. It does seem that I'm getting the same pixelation in the playback window as in the export even when it's set to "full"  quality, none of which occur in the original files when I watch them outside of PP. If the files at full quality don't look like they should in the playback window is that a sign the problem exists before export?

I don't know why the pics are uploading sideways. Apologies.

 

[Phillip Harvey]

Sequence settings look okay. Do you think you can post an example of the blurryness you're talking about? Btw you can take pics on your PC and upload them directly by hitting Shift+Windows+S

Also if you right click in Premiere on your footage and go to Properties you'll see the Variable Framerate thing. Phone footage is really bad with that. In fact it's just all out bad footage to work with (although it shouldn't be turning out blurry compared to the original--not due to VFR).

https://www.reddit.com/r/VideoEditing/wiki/faq/vfr

[Ann Bens]

I am seeing different framerates: 29.97 (sequence) and 60 exported to 30....

Handbrake is the way to go.

[Crazylykeafox]

Thanks for all the info!! How do aI post a vid? Can't seem to pull it up on my albums, only photos.

[Richard van den Boogaard]

iPhone footage is known for using variable framerates, which PPro has a hard time with. Consider transcoding the footage first with the use of Handbrake to a more edit-friendly codec with a constant framerate.

Hope this helps.

[Crazylykeafox]

Thanks so much!! What would be the ideal codec?

[Richard van den Boogaard]

Just select SuperHQ 1080p and change the settings to your preferred framerate and sound options.

Since you want to do further editing/grading to the footage, I would suggest you try to minize the re-encoding process. Jack up the quality slider to Placebo quality. You may end up with a larger file than your source footage, but at least you're not throwing (much) information away in the process.

Hope this helps.

[Crazylykeafox]

Ok, on handbrake now. Have the quality jacked up to placebo. Only other question I can think of is the original footage is 120fps which I'd like to keep so do I set it to 120? Or am I basically "interpreting the dootage through this app: so if I set to 30 it will be 1/4" speed like the interpreting option in PPro which I was planning on doing anyways. Peak or constant?

I don't see a SuperHq option in the codec drop down only

 

[Crazylykeafox]

Ok found the SuperHQ1080p

[Phillip Harvey]

The key thing in Handbrake is to check constant framerate in the video tab. Peak = variable, which is what you're trying to correct. And yeah you would want the framerate to match your original video.

Unfortunately with Handbrake you can't also transcode to a good editing codec while fixing VFR. But you should still get better playback results in Premiere. (To get into an editing codec you'd have to do another round of transcoding prior to editing, or to make proxies.)

[Crazylykeafox]

Thanks so much!! I think I'm on my way!! 

[Crazylykeafox]

Well Ive converted everything and overlayed the new clips on the old ones and still the same problem. Pixelation most easily noticed in the blue sky. Im attaching two clips, one is 10 seconds of the original which looks good on my PC (no pixelation), and the other is 15 seconds of the handbrake converted footage showing the pixealtion after export. Im having problems with youtube as well. Dont know if the original will show up there as I see it on my PC, all I can say is that the original footage looks great on my phone and on PC and pixelated in PPro and after export. 

also I noticed that on youtube the HD settings show 1080p60 and I know I exported at 29.97, I even went back and reexported to make sure. What should I try next?

https://youtu.be/tx8K9XrFj9c

[Ann Bens]

Can you upload the original clip to test?

[Crazylykeafox]

On my end they're both uploaded, the first one is the original. But YouTube maybe causing both to be pixelated. I can't know for sure you might see in your end. 

[Ann Bens]

Upload as in dropbox, wetransfer to test the original not the exported one.

[SamMatthews3883400]

I know this thread is a year old, but did you ever find a fix? It seems I'm having the exact same problem as you were!