Hi all,
I have a number of questions regarding compression artefacts when exporting from Premiere pro...
My raw footage is either from a Mavic 2 Pro (approx 100mbps, 4K, D-LOG, H265) or a Nikon D500 (approx 120mbps, 4K, Normal, H264). When exporting from Premiere pro, dark areas (e.g. water or a dark background) have very bad comrpession artefacts regardless of the bitrate I export at (obviously there are slightly fewer compression artefacts at higher bitrates), even when I have exported at the same bitrate as the original footage. I have tried this in both the H264 and the H265 CODECs. Attatched I have added files with various different export settings at H264 (note I have done nothing to the footage - e.g. no lumetri colour correction). Going downwards (40mbps, 80mbps, 120mbps, original)
Note: for some reason uploading the photos to here has made them appear darker. If you want I can send you the originals. The original footage looks much worse than these cropped screenshots. I have seen footage with both of these cameras on youtube (which compresses the heck out of everything anyway) which look far better quality. There must be a way of exporting at the same bitrate with very minimal compression artifacts? Movie producers making blu-rays manage it.
I want to look at my footage at 4K blu ray quality through my NAS. At the moment, unless I direct play the original file through plex, I get bad compression artefacts even with premiere exports at the same bitrate as the original footage. Ideally, I would want to be at around 50-60 to get marginally better quality than Netflix/YouTube whilst maintaining managable file sizes. Currently, my 100mbps exports look worse than Netflix/YouTube videos (4K generally around 30mbps). Note I am purely talking about compression artefacts, sharpness is fine.
Here are my export settings for the 120mbps clip:
2. Notice the original footage has a slightly more magenta tint to it. I have done not colour correction in premiere, why does it look different?
When I look at properties of the original file vs the export in premiere, they are the same except
Original: "Video Codec Type: MP4/MOV H.264 4:2:0 (Full Range)"
Export: "Video Codec Type: MP4/MOV H.264 4:2:0"
3. Do sequence settings make any difference to the quality of your export. Currently my sequence settings default to the following:
Basically, I just want to know how to export my footage to look better than YouTube/Netflix without major compression artefacting. I genuinley dont get how a file in the same CODEC as the original, at the same bitrate as the original, with a greater file size than the original can have such bad compression artefacts (I know they may be difficult to spot in the screenshots so I would gladly send the original video - where it is much more obvious).
FAQ:
Have you tried unticking render at maximum depth and use maximum render quality? yes
Have you tried constant bitrate vs variable bitrate? yes, no difference.
The original file isn't as crisp as the exports, could this be the issue? This is because I couldn't pause on the exact frame.
Thanks, I hope someone can help as it is very disheartening when you get great footage but you can't edit them at all as the export leads to such a great degradation in quality (compression artefacts).
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Replies
Thanks, I hope someone can help as it is very disheartening when you get great footage but you can't edit them at all as the export leads to such a great degradation in quality (compression artefacts).
By @owenl34864755
I recommend using another encoder. You can download a trial of TMPGEnc Movie Plug-in AVC for Premiere Pro and export using x.264 directly from the timeline. Fully functional and no watermarks in the trial version and with a quality that outperforms Premiere Pro´s native H.264 encoder.
Then i would:
- Un-check Render at Maximum Depth
- Un-check Use Maximum Render Quality
- Set the Normal Number of Frames in GOP to 30.
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