Best export settings in Adobe Premiere CS4

[Polesch]

What export settings is the best to use in Adobe Premiere CS4? Let's say that file size is irrelevant, I want the best video quality possible. What file format should I use? What encoder? bitrate? bit depth? framerate? What other settings?

[edDV]

It varies.

What are the source formats and what project settings?

[Polesch]

The source has a resolution of 720x576, PAL. Capture format is DV.

[edDV]

Then the "best video quality possible" export would be native DV format..

[Polesch]

Using "Microsoft AVI" without any codec gives a perfect video quality, but a 3 minutes file is 4,28 GB big. I don't know how to export to raw/native DV.

[edDV]

Using "Microsoft AVI" without any codec gives a perfect video quality, but a 3 minutes file is 4,28 GB big. I don't know how to export to raw/native DV.

I disagree with exceptions.

If your source is DV format and your project is DV format, any cut editing will preserve first camera generation quality. Premiere Pro will copy source frames to export without any processing. It will still be identical to the camera original. If you process a transition or filter a clip, Premiere will transcode to RGB and back to DV. Still the second generation DV is low loss.

Export to uncompressed is also low loss but more loss than export to native DV format. Also uncompressed expands the file size ~5x.

No export will get you to "perfect video quality". You can only have equal or lower video quality.