Understanding the Premiere Pro export format settings

[onilvehs]

I'm trying to learn more about the plethora of export settings in Premiere Pro 2018.  Specifically, I'd like to understand the differences between format H.265 and all the other possibilities.  For my purposes I'm shooting with a Mavic Pro 2 in 4K and mostly uploading to Youtube.  What are the reasons I would (or would not) want to use H.265?

[Ann Bens]

The only difference between H.264 and H.265 is the file size. Picture quality is the same.

[Meg The Dog]

I'm not sure YouTube supports H.265 as a format for upload, are you confident they do?

https://support.google.com/youtube/troubleshooter/2888402?hl=en 

Anyway - H.265 Good picture quality in very effecient file size/not a universally accepted file format (yet).

H.264 Good picture quality in reasonable file size for web delivery, very widely accepted.

The safe bet for the widest range of uses is H.264.

MtD

[onilvehs]

Aside from Youtube, I'd like to export the videos with as much clarity and sharpness as possible.  So far I've been using H.264 and H.265.  Thanks for your help. 

[DarrenManden]

Honestly, for general purposes, you're going to be fine outputting to either of those formats. 🙂 The settings will make a massive difference, but, for the time being, sticking to the presets should steer you in a decent direction.

[DarrenManden]

Yup, H.265 is supported, and is on the list you linked to 🙂

[DarrenManden]

Hey,

That's kind of a complicated question. Codecs are essentially a massive rabbit hole that you can dive down, explore, and potentially get pretty lost in, so I'd suggest doing a bit of research when you have (a whole lot of) time. However, for YouTube delivery, uploading in either H.264/5 will be advisable.

Without going too deeply into things, H.265 is a more efficient codec than H.264, meaning that, for the most part, you're going to get similar quality images with smaller file sizes.

If you're not super-familiar with settings, H.264 actually has a YouTube preset which you can use (for your 4k material, you'd select the 2160p option). For H.265, you can give the 4k preset a shot.

What more would you like to know? Like I said, you can go really far into these things if you like, but if you basically just want to output in decent quality, and upload without worry, the presets are a great place to start.

Cheers,

Darren

[onilvehs]

Thanks for the help!

[DarrenManden]

No sweat! 🙂

Codecs are really interesting to explore, so if you're interested in them beyond the basic surface level, then I wholly suggest taking time and doing some reading, but do keep in mind that really learning about them, and the advantages between different ones will take quite some time. In saying that, I definitely feel that it's good to know why things work the way that they do.