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Why are my rendered files so large?

Community Beginner ,
Jan 31, 2025 Jan 31, 2025

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Hello, great and powerful Adobe community.  I'm finding that no matter how I tweak my render settings, my video file sizes seem unreasonably large.  For example, today I rendered a 1hr Premier Pro edit using Media Encoder's YouTube 1080HD export preset, which produced a 1.8Gb file.  When I upload this 1.8Gb file to YouTube and then download it, the downloaded file is only 89Mb.  Seems like a huge disparity considering I'm using an export setting presumably optimized for YouTube specifically.  As you can see from my settings (below) I've got the target bitrates cranked down pretty low, to the point that the video quality already takes a noticable hit.  Any lower and the video quality is just poor.  What is YouTube doing to squish my 1.8Gb file down to 89Mb?  I notice a lot of 1080 video on YouTube looks crystle clear.  How can I acheive these small file sizes and still get acceptable video quality from Adobe Media encoder?

 

- Preset Used: Custom
- Video: 1920x1080 (1.0), 25 fps, Progressive, 203 (75% HLG, 58% PQ), Software Encoding, 01:08:06:02
- Audio: AAC, 320 kbps, 48 kHz, Stereo
- Bitrate: VBR, 2 pass, Target 4.00 Mbps, Max 6.00 Mbps
- Encoding Time: 00:46:52

 

This particular example is a little odd because the source video was downloaded from WebEx, so the quality was iffy to begin with, but that doesn't explain the bloated file sizes.  In fact, since the video content was just PowerPoint slides with audio, I'd actually expect better compression since there's hardly any motion in the video at all.  Can someone give me a hint as to what I'm missing here?  Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks!

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Jan 31, 2025 Jan 31, 2025

Video platforms will always re-encode your videos after you upload them, so there’s no need to worry about matching their final file size. Instead, the goal should be to export a high-quality video that holds up well after the platform applies its own compression.

 

When exporting for YouTube, file size mainly affects your storage and upload time. Beyond that, it’s best to focus on quality by using a high bitrate to minimize any loss during YouTube’s processing.

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Community Expert ,
Jan 31, 2025 Jan 31, 2025

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Video platforms will always re-encode your videos after you upload them, so there’s no need to worry about matching their final file size. Instead, the goal should be to export a high-quality video that holds up well after the platform applies its own compression.

 

When exporting for YouTube, file size mainly affects your storage and upload time. Beyond that, it’s best to focus on quality by using a high bitrate to minimize any loss during YouTube’s processing.

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Community Beginner ,
Feb 03, 2025 Feb 03, 2025

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Hi, Paul.  I appreciate your response, but I'm not sure I agree that this is a "right answer."  The question is: if YouTube can produce a 100Mb file from my 2Gb file and maintain reasonable video quality, why can't I just export a decent looking 100Mb directly from Media Encoder?  I don't only produce videos for YouTube and in my business file size is a always a concern because my video files are included as a part of other products.  Plus, handling files that are several Gbs in size is unweidly for clients who want to use them as part of their PowerPoint presentations, websites, or training platforms.  My point is that if YouTube can compress my 2 Gb into something under 150Mb and still maintain reasonable video quality, why can't I just export a decent looking 150Mb directly from Media Encoder?  I can't seem to get anything even close to that small without the video quality falling off a cliff, and I've already got my bit rates clamped down.  If I tried to render at the 16 mbps bitrate that Media Encoder defaults to, I'd end up with a 15Gb file.  With respect and appreciation, I don't my question has been answered.

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LEGEND ,
Feb 03, 2025 Feb 03, 2025

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Whether you like an answer or not is irrelevant. Paul gave an entirely practical and correct response. Why?

 

If you do send out a much more compressed file to YouTube/whatever, they will re-encode, as Paul notes. But now their re-encoded file will be down to what, 20Mb or less? ... and be of horrible visual quality due to compression issues.

 

Online services will re-encode, including drastic compression, to all files they take in. Period. You can't send a smaller file that they won't shrinkify.

 

 

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Community Beginner ,
Feb 03, 2025 Feb 03, 2025

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I didn't say I didn't like the answer, I simply pointed out that my question wasn't in fact answered, which is true.  As I said in my post, I'm very appreciative of the responses, but you're misreading my problem.

 

I understand that online video platforms will compress my video, of course.  What I don't understand is why I can't get the same level of compression/quality from Adobe Media Encoder.  Re-read my post and you'll see I'm not asking about encoding for YouTube or any other specific online hosting service, I'm asking about rendering for a range of purposes, not all of which will involve re-encoding.  I'm merely using YouTube as a compression engine because I can't figure out how to get as good a result from Media Encoder.  If I crank down my Media Encoder export settings to produce a 150Mb file, I will get horrible quality.  But if I upload my video to YouTube and use it as a compression engine, YouTube can take my 2Gb file and compress it to 150Mb while stll preserving decent video quality.  My question is: if YouTube can make my 2Gb video look decent at 150Mb, why can't I get a good looking 150Mb file directly from Media encoder?  I can't get anywhere near that small of a file.  Is there something wrong with my export settings (see original post)?  Or is AME simply not capable of YouTube's compression voodoo.  For example, if I want to skip YouTube entirely and create a 1:30:00 minute 150Mb video file of tolerable quality to embed in a client's PowerPoint presentation, can Adobe Media Encoder do that?  Because apparently YouTube can.

 

 

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LEGEND ,
Feb 03, 2025 Feb 03, 2025

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If you're just working to get smaller long-GOP files out ... that takes knowing the fine details of setting up the various options for that in pretty much any encoding app. 

 

Premiere and Resolve are both noted for not being so great at the "base" level settings for higher compression with (mostly) preserved video quality. But both have many options in their encoding dialogs that can be tweaked to get higher compression without notable visual loss. So you can get a smaller file, that looks decent, if you know how to get it through the options.

 

There's a couple users here who know how to tweak the profile/levels and such settings to get this done. I've never bothered. It's been ok, and the file sizes haven't bothered me or my clients.

 

One bit of advice often given for users of both Premiere and Resolve, is to export a ProRes say 422 file from Premiere. Then take that in Handbrake or ShutterEncoder, and create a long-GOP file.

 

As those to front-ends for the ffmpeg encoder both do a better job of naturally shrinkifying files.

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Community Beginner ,
Feb 03, 2025 Feb 03, 2025

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Thanks, Neil.  I'd very much like to be one of those users.  It's my hope that one of them will respond to this post and explain those settings, or point me to resources that I could learn from.  Ironically, I could possibly find a YouTube video that might help, but the Adobe Community Forum is where I've been getting my best info for the last 20 years, so I thought I'd start here.  I'm just afraid no one will show to my party with Paul's response tagged as "correct," but I'll keep my fingers crossed and let it ride.  In any case, I truly appreciate both of you taking the time to respond.

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Community Expert ,
Feb 03, 2025 Feb 03, 2025

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While Adobe Media Encoder (AME) is good it´s not good enough (imho) and video falls apart fast at lower bitrates while other encoders don´t. I never use AME when i want H.264, i bought a third party encoder that gives me either H.264 or the much preferred x.264. So when i need H.264/x264 i render out a ProRes file from Pr or AME and then bring it into Video Conversion / Encoding - TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works 7 and transcode it. Maybe you even can get better results than AME by using the free Shutter Encoder - Encoder|Converter video FREE PC|Mac. I have not compared AME with Shutter Encoder.

 

Pegasys do also have a plug-in so you can export directly from the timeline in Pr/AME, but it is sloooow so exporting to ProRes and then into Pegasys Mastering Works is faster. This is the plug-in: TMPGEnc Movie Plug-in AVC for Premiere Pro - Export Premiere Pro projects using the TMPGEnc H.264 en...

 

So consider to drop AME and look for a better third party encoder.

 

+ Better quality at low bitrates and smaller files.

- Cost money.

- Need to export to a ProRes file (LT or Proxy).

 

quote

...why can't I get a good looking 150Mb file directly from Media encoder?


By @Billy Ramone

 

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Community Beginner ,
Feb 03, 2025 Feb 03, 2025

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Thanks, Averdahl.  What I'm reading here in sum is that I could possibly learn to improve my export settings from Premier/AME to reduce my file sizes, but ultimately AME just doesn't compress as well as YouTube, and a third-party compression engine is probably required to get those kind of results.  Either way, I'll see what I can do to better understand Adobe's export settings, but I'll also look into alternatives.  Thanks, all!  If anyone else wants to jump in with more info or advice, I'm still listening.

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