Horrible video export quality

First off, I'm not the most tech savvy person out there. However, I have a really simple 8 minute video that i shot with my Canon SX20 IS. It's a still camera but it also shoots HD video. Anyway, the video looks great in imovie but when i export it it's pixelated and just awful quality. I've tried exporting it using different sizes, and all the different export options it has, nothing seems to work. This video is for a very dear friend of mine and I'm leaving to see them really soon, so i need to get this video up to par and into idvd as soon as possible. if anyone can help me to fix this problem it will be greatly appreciated.
Also, am i going to have a similar problem with idvd? like will ti look fine until i decide to burn it onto the disk?

mlop wrote:
... Canon SX20 IS. ... I've tried exporting it using different sizes, and all the different export options it has, nothing seems to work. ...
your cam records in 720p, which is AVCHD-lite, which is not supported by iM08 (=you posted in the im vers08 section of this board). How did you import? is 08 correct? or, perhaps, 09/11?
in Share, choose 'Export Movie'/Apple-E, choose the 'HD' called option, which generates a 720p movie with a more than acceptable quality.
keep in mind: 720p is 1280x720 .. watched 'full screen' on some iMac means 'zoom'/scaling, the impression of lost quality. to judge quality, always watch in 'native' resolution.
and Welcome, mlop, to the  boards ...

Similar Messages

H.264 Video Export Quality Options - Why no difference?

Hi all, first post so go easy on me!
I've been playing with the various options for exporting videos to H.264 as the original files are just too large. Lightroom 5.5 gives the impression that each quality option should result in a different output file size:
Max: "As close to source as possible"
High: "High quality, but with a possible reduction in video bit rate"
Medium: "Suitable for web sharing and higher end tablets"
Low: "Suitable for mobile devices"
I tested the output for a source file with a resolution of 1280x720, 30.000fps, bit rate 512kbps file size of 369 MB and got the following results:
Source
Resolution: 1280x720
Bit Rate: 512kbps
File Size: 369 MB
Max / High / Medium - all identical
Resolution: 1280x720
Bit Rate: 253kbps
File Size: 108 MB
Low
Resolution: 480x270
Bit Rate: 125kbps
File Size: 19 MB
Any reason why the Max, High and Medium options would all be identical? The only thing I could think of is that the higher options are for higher quality videos, and for movies taken with my compact digital, there isn't enough scope to differentiate between the various options.
This is still disappointing as the difference between 108 MB and 19 MB is quite substantial. I'd hope the High and Medium options would offer alternatives in between.
Not having used Lightroom for long, I was unsure whether I've just encountered a bug or whether this is normal behaviour and if so, why this is the case. I've looked for options to change the default resolutions for the different quality levels but it looks to be hard-coded as I couldn't find a setting.
Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

I think you need to start with a higher-resolution and bitrate file to start with to see more variation between the higher settings.
I say this because I just tried a 1920x1080x22Mbps MP4 video file from my phone and Max and High are the same, but Medium steps down to 1280x720x8Mbps and Low is 480x270x1Mbps.
I expect you’d have variation between all the quality settings if you started with a 4K video file.

Horrible video output quality with Premiere Pro CS4 + Adobe Media Encoder

I am trying to make some changes to a DV format file, and output as the same DV format. When the video is brought into Premiere, it looks crisp in the left-hand video box. But, when playing it on the right window and when encoding it, it comes out as a mess with substantial compression artifacts.
What confuses me is, I have experimented with a lot of codecs--even uncompressed AVI. There is no change in the video resolution--source is 720x480, as is output. I am keeping all the pixel aspect ratios the same as the source footage.
What is creating this distortion? I have no scaling of the video whatsoever in the sequence...
Is there some compression box I'm not seeing here?
I've attached a screenshot of a still from the video. As you can see, substantial artifacting around the lettering, making the text unreadable.

Some suggestions and answer at least the 16 questions at the end of the Wiki article.

Export quality grainy for TEXT / TITLE

Hello there,
Am kind of a newb, but am getting used to the basics and am happy with the video export quality. For some reason, the TITLE objects are coming out grainy, even when viewed at 100% size. I tried different output types, bitrates, changed fonts, font size, position, etc. Put black background behind, removed background, no matter what am still getting the fonts looking crappy once exported.
Some screenshots of what I see in the Premiere Pro output preview / workspace, and then a second shot showing the resulting output (same result in diff bitrates, just chose one as example)
In Pro:
http://fms.whoajack.com/textIssue01.png
Exported:
http://fms.whoajack.com/textIssue02.png
Any ideas?
Thanks for any suggestions,
Greg

DV is far from the best codec for text. But the real problem is that you're using FCP's built-in text generators. Instead, use the Boris Title 3D and Boris Title Crawl generators. They produce much cleaner vector-based text and have a ton of more options for creativity.
-DH

Help with exporting. Video looks horrible after export, but great when in premiere pro

Hey guys, looking for some advice on exporting.
When I finish a video, the color and everything looks great while in premiere pro, but after exporting it, the color ends up looking dull and the whole video looks blurry. I'm filming with a canon vixia hf200 at 60i. It imports as a AVCHD file, I deinterlace it, and then export at the Vimeo HD settings. What can be causing the video to look horrible after exporting? What settings should I be exporting under? Any help would be appreciated!

It looks like you're coming up against some of the colorspace handling issues that the Premiere pipeline has.
Since your source is 60i AVCHD it's HD and thus rec709 colorspace. If it gets encoded with the standard rec601 colorspace (SD sizes are this) then all the colors get crushed. Look for a "709" and "601" radio button in your export settings. If it's not there you're out of luck.
The "blurry" is probably a poor quality de-interlacer. If Vimeo permits interlaced vs progressive do that instead. it's always cleaner to stay in the same video format all the way through.
TECHNICAL ASIDE:
rec709 is a triangle of possible colors that can be expressed by mixing of ratios of 3 emitters (the R G B corners of the triangle). (they are the RGB phosphors of a CRT and now LCD pixel elements)
rec709 is a bigger triangle than rec601 so it's capable of more colors. but if you accidently map that triangle's corners to the coordinates of rec601 it gets crushed.
In photography the "sRGB" uses the rec709 triangle. A bigger triangle that that is "Adobe RGB". So if you work in Adobe RGB and export to sRGB without conversion the colors get crushed because sRGB in inside the triangle of "Adobe RGB".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srgb
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rec._709
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/CIExy1931_sRGB.svg

Why is export quality HORRIBLE? FCP 7.3

Why can't I export a .mov quicktime movie from FCP 7.3 that looks EXACTLY like the image I get when playing the footage in the timeline?
These are my 2 biggest quality issues that I can't find a way to surmount:
1. Interlacing. Yes, I shot interlaced - bad idea, never will do it again. But in FCP, viewed at full screen, the footage is beautiful - no interlacing artifact at all. Once exported, it looks horrible. Please no comments about "just choose 'deinterlace' when exporting." This seems to horribly degrade the quality (see below) and it doesn't deinterlace it anyway at the same resolution as I'm viewing it in FCP - you have to scale the quality down from 1080i to 720p before the interlace artifact in the exported file is gone. And even then, the quality is much worse than 720p should be (see below).
2. Saturation/bit depth/color quality: Once exported - no matter what quality I choose and no matter whether I check 'deinterlace' or not - the color goes down the drain once exported. It looks pathetic. Oversaturating the image before exporting in hopes of a correct saturation by the time it's exported does not work. The image is simply very, very washed out once exported.
Bottom line: If the footage looks beautiful IN final cut, viewed at full screen, we KNOW it can look beautiful OUT of final cut, viewed on the same screen. How is this accomplished?
A few technical details:
Footage specs:
Shot in 59.94i, 1080
AVCHD
.MTS
Imported RAW into FCP using Log and Transfer.
Once ingested into FCP (using default ingest settings):
29.97i
1920x1080
Upper (odd) field dominance
Square pixel aspect ratio
Apple prores 422
Export specs:
Compressor: H.264
Frame rate: Current
Keyframes: Automatic
Data Rate: Automatic
Frame recording: Unchecked
Quality: Best (multipass)
Encoding: Best quality
Export size settings:
I have tried all of the following settings, each with 'deinterlace' checked AND unchecked, respectively. And each with bad results:
1920x1080
1600x900
1280x720
and other sizes of 16:9
Any ideas on this is HUGELY appreciated.

Thanks for all the great input everyone.
To your questions:
Jason: I'm using QT 7.7.
Michael: Very helpful thoughts. I did export using quicktime instead of QT conversion and it looks identical - no problem....when viewing the exported file with FCP. When viewing it with QT 7.7, with the settings suggested by David, it's the same old crap I've been gettng all along. I"m new to Compressor and I'm using version 3.5. Can you advise a specific workflow for using Compressor here? As far as customizing QT for FCP color, I assume you mean the option in the Preferences 'Enable final cut studio color compatibility'. This is the only setting I see of relevance...
Russ - Final cut pro DOES accurately show image quality. At full screen view, my footage looks great in FCP. If it can look greatin FCP, it should be able to look great OUT of FCP. The question is just how to use the best compression setting to get the export file size down without sacrificing all that quality.... I'm judging by the monitor because I'm shooting for monitor end-viewership, not TV.
Bottom line - sounds like Compressor is the way to go. If someone could give me some pointers on Compressor workflow with this situation, that would bed awesome. I've never used the program before - 'export using QT conversion' in FCP has always been sufficient up until now.
Many, many thanks!

My Videos Export in Terrible Quality

I have a video project I'm working on, I've finished it and went to export as .wmv and .mov . When it finished exporting, I watched the videos, the quality was terrible. Any part of the video that had a lot of motion would look "liney". I've posted the videos so you can see what I mean. I realize that there are sections of the video that are un-rendered, I've taken care of that.
http://cornerstonemin.org/myvideo/Hava Java.wmv
http://cornerstonemin.org/myvideo/Hava Java.mov
How can I fix the problem, it's not when I import it because I use iMovie 6 to import than transfer the clips to FCE4 to work on them and edit. I've tried importing through FCE4 but it doesn't make a difference in video quality.

your links seem broken… but, you said they seemed liney… maybe you forgot do de-interlace.
de-interlacing makes your video so that it's proper for viewing on a computer screen.
there are two ways to de-interlace you footage in Final Cut Express:
1: doubble click on one of the clips to bring it into the viewer, then go to Effects —» Video Filters —» Video —» De-interlace. You can then copy and paste that filter to all the other clips in your video.
2: export using quicktime convertion, select quicktime movie, and then click options, click on size, and click "de-interlace source video"

So what's the export quality like???

Hi, after the 'pain' of i-movie 8, what's the view on the export quality in 9?
Does it export high enough quality to look good when burnt to dvd and played back on tv?

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
It looks the same as iMovie 08.
I did a compare one day using the same clip burned to DVD from iMovie 06 and from iMovie '08.
The iMovie 06 clip looked like it came from the DV camera directly and the iMovie 08 clip looked much worse. The difference is the single field processing used by iMovie 08/09 and the fact that it throws out every other horizontal line.
Because the two softwares handle the imported video differently - single field processing is how iMovie 08 / 09 handles the video, meaning that one of every two lines of the image is ignored. iMovie 06 uses ALL of the image to form the video.
If your primary workflow is editing DV clips and making DVDs, iMovie '06 is better suited. Your movie will arrive at iDVD in DV format, which is an ideal match for making a DVD: same resolution, same pixels aspect ratio, and original quality. If you share your movie from iMovie '08 / 09, it gets re-rendered at 640x480 or less, and then iDVD upscales it back to 720x480. The end result is obviously not as good.

Export quality in After Effects

I'm using After Effects CS4 and have exported as an MPEG-4. The quality of the final movie is very poor. It looks like a low quality JPEG. In After Effects preview, it looks fine.
I'm familiar with exporting quality videos out of Premiere. Is the usual workflow to open AE projects in Premiere and use the options there to export? Or am I missing something in AE?

That may be, but I'm just not a fan. I did some tests a few years ago and decided that Animation
wasn't worth it and that it was in fact creating artifacts in my renders.
Just to show my work, I am pulling some info from wikipedia as a reference:
"For complex 3D rendered scenes or digitized film of real-world footage, it barely compresses at all and also can add visible noise."
Now I know, wikipedia isn't highly reliable, anyone can edit it, blah blah blah, but this statement runs congruent to my own findings. Add to that the weighty file size, and then the fact that this codec is officially my ENEMY because my students, who are instructed to use Sorenson 3, often forget to change the codec for their .mov renders, and so sometimes I get these bloated files that I have to trash and they have to re-render, and I just don't really care for this codec at all.
I just don't render video any more. Haven't for a long time now. So many advantages to using img sequences, I haven't looked back to big bloated video files.

Youtube Export Quality

Is the youtube export quality improved in iMovie 09? Is 640x360 still the maximum size for direct upload to youtube?
Thanks,
Shawn

Is the youtube export quality improved in iMovie 09?
iMovie has little to do with the end quality of files other than determining the size/duration/quality of the files sent to YouTube. All files sent to YouTube are converted to FLV by Youtube. This conversion by Youtube itself determines the final resolution/quality of your files. If quality is what you seek, then it is probably best to create your own website and post your video at the resolution and level of quality which you can manage yourself. YouTube and similar sites aim for compatibility of viewing -- not quality.
Is 640x360 still the maximum size for direct upload to youtube?
I don't believe there are restrictions on resolution -- just duration (10 minutes) and file size (1 GB). Whatever you upload will be re-compressed to fit in the 1 GB file size limit. Higher quality means shorter times. Larger files usually mean more compression to fit it within the YouTube file size restriction. Your best bet is to review the Help resources area at Youtube.

Export quality of CS6 compared to CS3

Having had Premiere Pro CS3 for about 5 years I recently upgraded to CS6 but immediately found problems achieving the same kind of export quality I had before. Initially I was testing with a project created in CS3 but then simplified the matter by creating a new project in CS3 and entering a single piece of text and exporting as a single tiff frame and doing exactly the same in CS6 and attached is the comparison. I can't of the life of me figure out what the problem is, hopefully someone can help.
Thanks,
Keith.

Okay, thanks for the further input, I've made progress with it, I've discovered it's to do with the field order setting. Basically my knowledge of video editing and video standards is rather limited and the kind of work I've done in the past has mostly been to produce animations from 3ds Max which are simply shown as demonstrations to people on a PC or laptop, and so when setting up a new project in Premiere I always selected "Desktop" editing mode, changed some settings and left others as default such as Fields: Lower Field First, mainly because I didn't know what it meant.
When exporting the finished video the default would be Progressive Scan and everything fine, so never touched it. With CS6 if I do everything the same way I get the problem described above, but if for new projects I select Progressive Scan in the setup then everything is fine. (Similarly with lower field in setup and export).
However I still have a problem with imported CS3 projects. In CS6 if I simply open the project and select Lower Field on export, or start a new project with Progressive Scan in setup and import the project, the fuzziness I had before is gone but now I get the effect in the following attached image (a print screen from a paused video, left one exactly as I expect):
I have found a work around though, which is to start a new CS6 project with progressive scan in setup, import the project, then create a new sequence and copy the contents of the imported sequence into it and that exports fine, although I suppose it could get complicated when there are sequences inside sequences. I'm sure there is still something simple I'm missing to do this in a more seamless manner, if anyone has any ideas please let me know.

IMovie vs FCPX export quality

Afternoon/morning all.
Question I have is regarding the export quality of FCPX vs iMovie!!
I've been using iMovie for over a year now but only recently started to publish my work.
I get on with iMovie great but the one issue that let's it down is the export quality, it's been driving me crazy but after finally looking into it seems that iMovie is the problem and reduces the footage quality.
I'm just thinking about upgrading to FCPX the extra editing features and functions will be great too.
I just want to know that the exporting footage in FCPX won't reduce the quality of the footage!
Can anybody help!!
Thanks

'quality' is a very complex issue.
Most consumer IMPORTS do look nice, when the cam is connected straight to a telly.
… but those recordings contain tons of 'flaws'. (low bitrates, artefacts due to wrong exposure etc)
the difference, how iMovie and FCPX handle that:
• iM uses as intermediate AppleIntermediateCodec - which does marvel with all the diff. flavors of video, a consumer wants to edit ... but it is far from perfect.
• … and iMovie deinterlaces interlaced material = reducing vertical resolution by half
• FCPX transcodes to proRes or even handles codecs 'natively' - which reduces transcoding errors (dramatically)
on export, both apps use the same Quicktime-engine, I dare to say no difference.
using the wrong export settings, multiplies bad imports …
the 'hurt' is done on import, …
and most damage, in terms of quality, is done on recording ....

PE11 has more limited video export formats that PE7?

I upgraded to PE11 but now I find I have fewer video export options. For example, for YouTube I used to export as Windows Media (WMF) at 720p/25, and I had full control over many settings. Now, I find if I choose Windows Media I have a very limited choice of options and the resolution is limited to 720x480. If I choose AVCHD at 720p I get big MP4 files that look terrible. Likewise, HD 720p/25 gives a large and not great-looking MPG file, while HD 720p/25 High Quality confusingly gives a smaller-sized (but equally inadequate) MPG file. Again, Quicktime export offers me only a few options, none of which is 720p, where in PE7 I could choose from a much larger set of presets and change all the parameters. If I choose 'export Flash video for YouTube' I get only a few options, none of which is 720p.
Am I just missing how to do this, or does PE11 really have many fewer options for exporting video than PE7?

keysound
In version 7, you had 2 export routes, File Menu/Export/Movie and Share/ with choices for Disc, Online, Personal Computer, Mobile Phones and Players, and Tape.
In version 11, you do not have the File Menu/Export/Movie route, but you do have Publish+Share (the new generation) Share with a vast selection of export choices. I will not go over them, but for now will address only two of your points in your post.
1. As for QuickTime. Make sure that you have the latest version of QuickTime. QuickTime installation on the computer with Premiere Elements is required to see the QuickTime choices. Assuming that you have done that, then set an appropriate choice for Presets in the export dialog and then go under the Advanced Button/Video Tab, Audio Tab, and, if applicable other of the preset to take control of your video and audio settings.
2. SG has already suggested to you a choice for a file to be uploaded to YouTube at the YouTube web site that should give you best results.
3. But, as an example, here is how you get your old "Windows Media 720p25" export from Premiere Elements 11 Windows.
Publish+Share
Computer
Windows Media
Presets = 720 x 576 16x9 25
then under the Advanced Button/Video Tab of that preset, set as follows
You have full control over those settings. The bottom which is not visible in the screenshot shows "Average Video Bitrate = 1500 kbps (aka Kbps and representing kilobits per second).
Please review.
Thanks.
ATR

Video Export Settings

Hi guys,
I know there are other posts with similar questions. And I already checked and read http://lightroom-news.com/2009/10/28/direct-timelapse-video-export-from-lightroom/ but since this discussion there came to an end in summer 2010 I'll start a try here once again.
I already downloaded some presets and templates for video export inside the slideshow module. Unfortunately the best what I could get was 1080p @ 25fps with a bitrate of 12Mbit (--> http://lrtimelapse.com/download/). I tried to modify resolution, bitrate, codec and output format, but it doesn't work.
I checked the values for the different levels on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Levels). For higher resolution I used a higher level, but it won't work.
Since LR is stating errors I changed the levels for higher bitrates as well although it wouldn't be necessary relating to the H264 standards.
And if I changed the H264 profile to HIGH or HI10, there's always an error message. In most cases with the HRD module. I read on the net that HRD in H264 codec checks the buffer.
Usually it shouldn't be a problem to use level 5.1 with 4096x2304 @ 25fps and 200Mbit/s. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Maybe somebody can tell me how LR interprets the template sheet. What line does or means what, etc. ... maybe I'm missing out something.
And last but not least, any chances to change the codec? And if not the codec then at least the file format? I would love to see .mov rather than .mp4.
Thank You!

What you want to do ius experiment with settings to get your video to be as close to 100MB as possible every time.
If your content is talking heads telling jokes with little movement try this as a starting point.
Use Quicktime conversion - Options - Video Settings - Quality - High - Size 320 x 240 - Frames per second - 15 - Key Frame - Every 5 secs - Sound settings - Compressor - IMA 4:1 - Rate 44.1khz - 8 bit - mono - Uncheck the Prepare for Internet Streaming.
This is a wild guess and you'll probably have to change some of the variables to achieve your target 100MB.
In Video -Settings - Compress Settings - you could try Sorensen 3 or MPEG-4 and here's a couple of links that you might find helpful.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=2411365&#2411365
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/qt_movies_fromfcp.html

Best Export Quality HD-AVI to DVD

Hello,
I'm currently working on a project and have come up with some poor results in my final iDVD disk images, namely blockly looking video.
I am using FCx 4.0.1 on 10.7.1
My HD-AVI source video has the following properties:
When starting my FCx project I selected the DV-NTSC Easy Setup and proceeded to make subclips and a voiceover successfully. My sequence has the following properties:
In FCx I used the Export->Quicktime Movie to produce my file for iDVD. In iDVD I selected Professonal Quality encoding.
Are there any ideas in this circumstance as to how to maximize export quality to DVD?
Much appreciated!

You have 1440 clips going into and SD Sequence.
This is the key problem.
Also I'm not sure how the AVI DML Jpeg clips will go in FCE, you may have to transcode to Apple Intermediate Codec.
Al

Horrible video export quality

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