Exporting and retaining quality

Hi there.
I'm having some issues exporting from Premiere Pro CS5 and retaining image quality. Rather than retype the problem could I ask you to have a look at the following blog post where I break down the problems I'm having and give some examples.
http://www.pauljoy.com/2010/12/hdslr-encoding-wars-premiere-pro-vs-final-cut-pro/
I know there are a lot of options / settings during the encode process that effect the quality of the output and I have tried various combinations including both 1 pass and 2 pass VBR encodes as well as MXF and other transfer protocols but so far have not achieved an export that retains the quality thats shown within the NLE. I guess my ultimate question would be, what codec / settings would you use to achieve maximum export quality?
Any thoughts or tips on ways to retain more quality in the encoded files would be greatly appreciated.
Best regards
Paul.
EDIT: Should also give some system specs
Mac OS10.6
12 core 2.93
16GB RAM
SSD Drives
Nvidia Quadro 4000 (MPE Hardware enabled)
Latest update for PP CS5 installed

what codec / settings would you use to achieve maximum export quality?
Uncompressed, Lagarith, UT or any other lossless codec. Anything else will incur some amount of degradation.

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Kind people,
I know this question has been asked many, many times, and I have searched and read up of the topic, but I would also like to ask it.
I shot my video on a Canon Vixia HF10, downloaded it to Final Cut Express to edit, exported it as Quick Time Movie, dropped it in iDVD, then played it on my TV and the quality was…..not good. The video was a little fuzzy and there were ghosts. Are there any settings I should go back and check in iDVD.
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Hi(Bonjour)!
What is the format recorded by this camera?
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What was your sequence format in timeline?
How did you export your sequence (specify exact steps, menus and command)?
What was your iDVD project settings?
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Did you monitor your DVD on computer screen or TV set?
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Exporting and dvd quality

I have built an hd project in premiere using the AVCHD settings. When I go to export my project, I export it using the h.264 export templete using CBR at 8 to 9 on the sliders and everything else I leave as is. My exported video is great on my 23" LCD monitor being played through media player. It covers the entire screen and is crystal clear. When I go to build my dvd in encore, I let encore select the best encoding option and build my dvd. When I insert the dvd in my players, the result is not near the quality as my computer playing it in media player. It doesn't fill the screen nor is the quality there. I have played it in a Toshiba HD dvd player as well as a Panasonic Blue Ray with the same results. I thought maybe it was something encore was doing in the conversion, so I used TMPGEnc Authoring Works 4 to build my dvd. The quality was somewhat better, but still had the black letterbox around the video.
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Hi William,
I would have to ask why you are exporting to H.264, if intending to make a DVD? Then you are creating an extra compression step in the process, taking an already compressed file and then recompressing to MPEG-2 for DVD.
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http://sorensonmedia.com/
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Import/Export to retain best quality for a Beginner

Hi,
I'm hoping someone could help me retain the best quality possible for my video while working on projects because whatever I'm doing now is not working.
I shoot with a Sony HDR-FX1000 in HDV 1080i/24p and the picture and quality is amazing when plugged into a TV or played back on the camera LCD screen. I use a new iMac 2.7GHz Intel Core i5, Mac OS X 10.7.4 to edit. However, when I import into my new FCP X it is not as crisp and quality, and then when I export, it is definitely not the quality I imagined. The video loses it's sharpness and it gets very noisy plus fuzzy lines appear in some areas of shots. These lines don't show up when I view my edited footage in the timeline, only after exporting. I'm fairly new to this all and know I'm not using the best settings to retain the most quality because the beginning and end quality look very different.
I don't do heavy duty editing or effects at the moment. Basic color correction, slow-motion, preset effects, transitions, music and titles.
ANY help relating to what my settings should be across the board to retain the best image possible is greatly appreciated. I can't seem to figure it out with trial and error anymore and thought I'd turn to the experts for help.
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Smalls

I've set the viewer to both fields. I guess I don't know why I was transcoding. I thought it somehow optimized the video. Could part of the reason the quality drops be because I transcoded the video when I didn't need to?
When I export, these are the settings I use and then export to QuickTime.
Here is an example of the noise and lines that show up after exporting the video.
It's not like this in the viewer while editing EXCEPT when I change playback quality to High Quality. Any idea why?
Also, these are my settings when importing the video. What should be changed other than deselected the Transcoding options?
I really appreciate the input. Thanks!

After creating a new slideshow I export it with the setting HD 1080p it is then saved as a .mov i then create a dvd in idvd and the quality is not as good as the original photo's when viewed on the monitor or a TV, am i doing something wrong?

After creating a new slideshow I export it with the setting HD 1080p it is then saved as a .mov i then create a dvd in idvd and the quality is not as good as the original photo's when viewed on the monitor or a TV, am i doing something wrong?

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Peter

Quality, Export, and Compression help (pic included)

I'm working on an edit of my RTW trip and am struggling to figure out some quality issues. Video was captured by 3 cameras (a JVC everio, a GoPro Hero 2, and a Droid 4). All record in HD (720 or 1080). I figured I would use the lowest common denominator and converted all the video in MPEG streamclip to be 1280x720 HD, using Apple Intermediate Codec and 100% quality. I have the whole timeline basically finished in FCE, but I'm trying to refine it now and I'm really bothered by the quality. It doesn't look HD at all...it looks really pixelated. Below is a screenshot of my viewer, which is at 100%. Note the edges where the blue arrows point-they're all jagged.
It looks decent at 100% but that is not even 1/6th of my screen. If I go up to 200% it looks like crap. Is this just because I'm editing on a 26" iMac and my screen is so big that I need 1080p or 4K to look good at full screen? When I cropped the 100% screenshot in Preview I noticed that it is 640x360 pixels...exactly half of 1280x720 like I would expect. Why is that? How do I get the quality to be like it should? Am I losing it in MPEG Streamclip or Final Cut? I haven't even started the export battle, which always infuriates me with how bad the quality comes out if the video is a reasonable file size (This video is 5m40s, I feel like 100MB or less is reasonable for streaming right?)
Thanks a ton for the help. I really want to finish this edit this week but want to make sure I do my trip of a lifetime justice.

1.) Any advice for resizing the 1080 clips?
Go to the first clip in your timeline that is 1080 and looks incorrectly sized. Double click on that clip in the timeline, you will see the clip open in the Viewer. Once it does that, in the Viewer, click on the Motion tab, and then adjust the Scale paddle until the frame is just filled. Once that is done, type Command + C to copy the clip and the settings adjustment you made.
Now go to the next instance of a 1080 clip in your timeline and click on it to select it. If there a bunch together you can hold down the shift key while you click on the clips and select as many as you want at a time. Once you have made the selection, type Option + V to paste the attributes from the clip you had just copied. The Paste Attributes window should open, and you want to check the Basic Motion box and keep everything else unchecked. Then click OK, and the clips you had selected should now all be resized.
2.) Some of the clips still have blurry frames. Now that I have the sequence totally edited and don't need to trim/move clips all the time, if I use the raw source video (not optimized for Final Cut via MPEG streamclip and the Apple Intermediate Codec) in Final Cut, will the quality be better or will it be the same/not work at all?
Final Cut Express will only work with HD material in Apple Intermediate codec. You were smart to convert the footage prior to editing. Are the clips that look blurry the 1080 clips? At any rate, you may need to render your timeline, see if any colored render bars are showing on the timeline (rendering will occur automatically when you export your finished movie).
MtD

Export PSD to PDF and retain text

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Thanks!

Don't worry. On some versions, it's not that easy to spot. Most Save_As will have Photoshop PSD at the top, then drop down alphabetically, so that Photoshop PDF is amongst the "P's." Sometimes I have to squint to see it and have paniced, when I could not initially find it tucked away.
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How to export and reimport clips maintaining best quality?

I'd like to ask a few questions.
(1) I have several subclips in FCE that I would like to export, so I can import them back into FCE as individual clips, separate from the original capture. I would also like the option to use the exported clips in iMovie project. The most important thing is to save the clips at the highest possible quality. I ran into a problem when trying to import the clips back into FCE.
First, I tried exporting clips using File>Export>Using Quicktime Conversion... with the following options:
Video Settings:
Compression Type H.264
Quality: Best (the slider in the Settings window I dragged all the way to the right for Best quality)
Key frame rate: 24
Frame Reordering: yes
Encoding mode: multi-pass
Audio Settings:
Format: Uncompressed
Sample rate: 48 kHz
Sample size: 16
Channels: 2
Prepare for Internet Streaming <unchecked>
The clip was saved to disk. I didn't open or modify the clip at all.
Then I tried using File>Import>Files... but when I tried to import it, I got this error:
"File Error: 1 file(s) recognized, 0 access denied, 1 unknown."
So this is the problem I'm experiencing. Can't re-import the clip into FCE (it imports into iMovie fine, though)
Questions: Am I using "wrong" settings? Why is this happening? How can I export and reimport clips while maintaining best video and audio quality?
(2) A couple related questions: Some of my original source video was recorded at 12-bit quality (32 kHz). I know 16-bit is best (48 kHz) but the camera I used came with factory default 12-bit (and as a novice I didn't know to change it until several months later).
So here are my questions.
(a) If I export these clips using audio export settings at 48 kHz instead of 32 kHz, would that cause any problems?
(b) Would those clips then be recognized by FCE and iMovie as having 48 kHz audio even though it was originally recorded at 32 kHz? (I know the quality will be no better, but I've read somewhere that using 32 kHz audio can cause some problems with out-of-sync audio, particularly in iMovie. My hope is the new clip with the 48 kHz audio will circumvent such problems.)
Thanks for any assistance you can provide.
PowerMac G5 Quad 2.5 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.3) NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT

TSchneider: Thanks again for your valuable reply. I have a few follow-up questions.
My first set of questions is about rendering audio to 48kHz in the timeline.
Almost immediately you'll notice that FCE has tagged the
entire audio track with a red bar meaning it will
need to be rendered (if you try to play the clip from
the Canvas controls you'll just get beeping or very
low quality sound). Go up to the Sequence menu and
select the Render All (or Mixdown) command and FCE
will transcode the 32kHz audio of your clip to the
48kHz audio of the sequence it's sitting in.
I followed your instructions and everything seemed to work until I got to the passage above. I dragged the subclips into the timeline. The clips appeared in the timeline but there was no red bar. If I chose Render All from the Sequence Menu, nothing happened. If I chose Export to Quicktime Movie, however, it takes several minutes, apparently rendering the audio and video. If I chose instead, Print to Video, the red bars do appear and the rendering process again gets going. There is a small progress bar for both operations in the center of the screen with a percent done and estimated time remaining.
Question: Why doesn't the red bar appear as soon as the clips are in the Timeline?
Question: Why doesn't Render All (or Render Audio) work? It would be much easier to walk away while all the audio rendered into 48kHz and then come back later to save the individual clips to disk.
My second set of questions pertains to the possibility of using Export>Using Quicktime Conversion as a substitute for Export>Quicktime Movie, mainly for academic instead of practical reasons.
If you export a clip directly from the bin "Using
Quicktime Conversion" there aren't any suitable
conversion video/audio formats that would give you
both video in the right format (for iMovie) and
transcode the audio to the sampling rate you want.
I understand your description of rendering the audio files in the timeline. If only academic, I was trying to see if I could duplicate the results using using Export>Using Quicktime Conversion. I chose Quicktime Movie as the format. The video setting was DV/DVCPRO-NTSC. The audio was uncompressed with 48kHz rate. This created a Quicktime movie file with these formats. If I opened the quicktime movie file in Quicktime and checked the info on the file, the audio was indeed 48kHz.
Question: Does this mean that the Quicktime Conversion process rendered the 32kHz audio to 48kHz audio prior to writing the file? If so, it would seem to bypass the need to render the clips in a sequence (although if I could render all the clips in the sequence at once, while I was away from the computer, it would be faster than rendering and saving each clip one at a time).
Question: When I exported a clip this way, then imported it into iMovie, the original capture date/time info was missing when I got info on the clip. However, when I save the clip using Export>Quicktime Movie, the date/time of capture was still present. Would there be any way to preserve this date/time of capture info when using Export>Using Quicktime Conversion?
Question: If I decided to Export>Using Quicktime Conversion with the above settings (DV/DVCPRO-NTSC, 48kHz audio) there are other options I'm given pertaining to the video settings. There are settings for Compressor Quality, with a sliding bar where you can choose Least, Low, Medium, High, and Best quality; and there is Scan Mode (interlaced or progressive). How does one choose among these? If you want the best quality exported clip, I suppose you would chose best quality, but what scan mode is "best" for my purposes -- interlaced or progressive?
Thanks a lot for your help. I'm learning a lot!

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thx, i can't see where you do that (access the function to slow the motion of a clip). in the help file it says to 'right click' on the clip to access those functions but when i do i get these optios below (no motion, pan, zoom, pan and zoom). i want access the speed/duration sliders.
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i foolishly upgraded my imac to mavericks. then a few days later when i opened my aperture libraries it asked me if i wanted to update them and that i wouldnt be able to read them in an older version of aperture. i foolishly didnt think much of it because i presumed that i would be able to upgrade my aperture application on my macbook pro. so now my mac book pro is virtually obsolete because it can no longer work on my photo files.
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The Aperture "Preferences > Export" pane has an option "Include Faces Information in exported photos".
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Exporting and retaining quality

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