Premiere Pro Pixelated Export for GoPro 4K

[Heather6C14]

Seems like any settings combination for exporting from Premiere Pro has the blue sky pixelated in my 4K output and does not at all match source quality.  The clips are not up-sampled or down-sampled. Sequence settings seem to be the same as export and source clips (screenshots attached).  I have tried both hardware and software exports.  This is not the first time I have had this issue.  It seemed like the previous two videos worked okay with the YouTube 2160 export profile, but now that is not working anymore.  Any help is appreciated - I  have looked at multiple forum posts, YouTube videos, etc. over the last few weeks.  I am about to give up on Adobe CC.

Did not capture all settings but here are some of the key ones I know affect output quality:

Take 1:

Tried using YouTube max 2160

Did not change anything

Pixelated

Take 2:

Hardware encode

Tried Tube max 2160

Then CBR

Target bitrate 50

Pixelated

Take 3 (4/16/22):

Started with YouTube 2160

Changed to software encode

Bitrate encoding - CBR

Yes selected - us max rendering quality

Target bitrate - 59 mbps

Not quite as bad - but still pixelated

[Heather6C14]

Output properties from the take 3 settings added

[Nancy OShea]

[Moderator moved from Using the Community (forums) to Premier Pro.]

[R Neil Haugen]

Max Render Quality is only ever of use if any resizing is being done. This does not seem to be the case here, so that's not needed.

Your bitrates to me seem low for this. Especially starting with a long-GOP block compression format going to YouTube, where it gets re-encoded twice.

Skies and even-colored walls are very easy to get artifacting with H.264 encoded to YouTube. You need to probably kick the bitrate up to 100Mbps or better.

Another way to get better Q uploads to YouTube is to send them ProRes files. Those won't be as artifact-prone on the re-encoding.

Neil

[Heather6C14]

Thank you, Neil.  That seemed to help on a shortened clip with in/out set to about a minute using 151.8 bitrate (and @Graeme Bull 's recommendation Match Source - Adaptive High Bitrate suggestion).    

However, on multiple attempts the full video got stuck at 86%.  Before I saw the recommendations, I had upgraded my Windows version, drivers and Adobe Premiere Pro.  

I reverted back to the previous version of Adobe Premiere Pro, tried both recommended settings, exported the full video, and it is still pixelated.  Same behavior as before, even with higher bitrate and Match Source-Adaptive High Bitrate suggestions.

[Phillip Harvey]

What are you using to judge the video quality? The way it looks in a video player or back in Premiere Pro? Or YouTube?  

[Heather6C14]

Original file in video player versus output file from Adobe Premiere Pro in same video player. 

At one point I successfully created a beautiful short clip of the same project.  Something is tripping up the processing in the previous and new Premiere version.  I might just have to keep extending the "out" marker and export it over and over to see where it breaks down.

[R Neil Haugen]

Try a ProRes or DNX out of Premiere. Then make the H.264 from that.

I've seen people re-import the H.264 into Premiere to make the H.264, and also take the ProRes or DNX over to ffmpeg, Shutter Encoder, or Handbrake to make the H.264, as those apps are built around providing a ton of H.264 options.

Neil

[Graeme Bull · Accepted solution]

Just use "Match Source - Adaptive High Bitrate" and upload that. Don't bother with the YouTube settings one, YouTube already reencodes the file so you might as well use as high of quality as you can.