Some Frustrations about HD Video Online

[Priapism]

So Im the guy who has the $2000 Sony HD camera who has spent hours upon hours trying to screw with Premiere and other programs to accomplish basic goals: (1) share my HD Videos with others (2) Without losing quality and having (3) minimal extras like fade in fade out. I've failed. Facebook doesn't even recognize the MTS files my Video Camera produces. Changing filename works but the uploaded version basically sucks in my opinion. Youtube handles MTS files now but again the encoding blows. I had to search a pile of crap to find one program that actually stitches MTS files together in a lossless manner. That only took me a year. The end result is lackluster, average video quality video uploads.

Then my buddy pops on facebook, and with an "HD Flip" he cranks out videos in 3 seconds flat, uses the program that came with it to fade in fade out, and uploads them in native file format which happens to be "MOV" with literally almost no "loss". The videos look spectacular, and he doesnt even know what 'Premiere' is. Guy hasn't spent 5 minutes learning this crap.

Im aware that online / bandwidth / encoding etc all limit the possible quality, but his end result was fantastic. With little to nothing. Meanwhile im sitting here sifting through hundreds of possible encoders, sweating over bitrate, and failing to get anything worth showing to anyone.

[davexnet]

Doesn't the Flip produce H264 in MOV format? Can't you encode yours to similar ?

[Priapism]

Doesnt look as good. For one of ten thousand reasons. There are always ten thousand reasons. ten thousand settings. So premiere simply doesn't have "that good of an encoder" or .. something and when you have to re-encode something, it looks like crap compared to normal ... blah blah ... so ... no its not as simple as encoding it for H264. Comparing to the original file it doesnt look as good.

[poisondeathray]

If you have quicktime installed you can encode the same as your buddy, but it's really not that good of an encoder.

Just use a higher bitrate, and it will look fine

If you want the best AVC encoder use x264. (eg. export out uncompressed out of AME, then import that into x264 or one of it's GUIs)

[Priapism]

See how you have to go through 10 steps just to do something? Thats what i hate about this video editing world. Nothing is consolidated or put together. Its like going to a pizza place and having to pick your own tomatoes from the garden behind the Papa Johns, and kill your own pig and roll your own sausages ...

Okay so I download yet another little program ... stick my MTS files into x264 .... spit them out uncompressed (what do you mean "out of AME" ? is that yet another program i have to download? God!!! ) ... then import them again into x264 .... and dear god did you say "Or one of its guis" ? Does that mean x264 is actually a manual DOS based program where I have to type code commands my self?? Ive even seen that considered "normal" in this world .... please tell me x264 has a GUI interface ... LOL !!!!!!!!!!!

[poisondeathray]

AME = Adobe Media Encoder, it comes with Premiere Pro

There are dozens of GUI's for x264 , eg. handbrake, ripbot264, xvid4psp, staxrip, megui etc...

If you use high enough bitrate, you can use premiere and AME to export, and it will look fine. They are re-encoded with a low quality, low bitrate anyways

The big difference is in how you shoot and prepare the video. An amateur shot shaky handheld footage is horrible for compression and will look like crap. The problem is youtube, facebook etc... they reencode with a low bitrate. Even if you uploaded the original, it ends up looking like crap because the website host re-encodes. So you have to optimize your video before you upload it.

If you don't feel like learning or downloading better programs, go ahead and continue doing whatever you were doing

Cheers

[Priapism]

As I mentioned in the initial post - i have already spent tens of tens of hours fighting with Premiere .... if you read through all my threads youlll see after countless questions and tweaks the bottom line was simple: Premiere can not encode an MTS file in a lossless format.

"Looking fine" is easy. And its exactly what my first post above stated. I know how to get that. However that is not what I said (in my first post above) is one of my goals. And it is not what my friends video looks like with a far inferior camera and absolutely zero thought. He accomplished "Fantastic".

Ive already done the whole 'struggle with 45 apps and tweak and adjust 95 settings' thing. That is why I created this thread. Your suggestion is that I jump right back into it. start downloading multiple apps. Start messing with countless settings. Do you see how that was what I wanted to avoid in my first post? All to end up with an end result that looks "fine" ... been there. Done that. Next solution please.

The big difference is in how you shoot and prepare the video. An amateur shot shaky handheld footage is horrible for compression and will look like crap. The problem is youtube, facebook etc... they reencode with a low bitrate. Even if you uploaded the original, it ends up looking like crap because the website host re-encodes. So you have to optimize your video before you upload it.
\

Did you even read my first post above? (1) His video is amateur and shakey and looks great. On Facebook. It actually looks high definition (2) I already addressed the issue of youtube and facebook re-encoding above - and said his video looks amazing on Facebook (3) I already addressed optimizing before uploading - I stated clearly that Premiere can not adjust MTS files and spit out anything in lossless format. The quality degrades with literally every single encoding option I tried in Premiere.

The point was - for the 10th time - this guy DIDNT HAVE TO DO ANY OF THIS and got a SUPERIOR result.

The solution therefore is NOT to tell me to start busting out one of 15 apps and 23 encoding settings. That was the whole point of my rant.

Maybe ill just go buy a flip and put Premiere and my $2500 Sony camcorder in the trash. Since nobody at Sony or Adobe has figured out what mac has figured out - that regular people use their products.

[davexnet]

Could you post a 10 second sample of your source? Then perhaps the experts could make a more targeted suggestion.
Is your source 1080 (i/p) or 720p ?

Would you accept a 720p result ?

[poisondeathray]

LOL , maybe you should get a MAC then

1 extra step, and the output is significantly better using x264 on a PC than using quicktime h.264 on a mac . This has been proven time and time again . If you friend didn't use h.264 , then find out what he used.

On a mac , you incur 2 generation lossess with FCP (prores on ingest, and re-encoding on export) , but on a PC, you can import natively (= 1 less generation loss)

I already addressed optimizing before uploading - I stated clearly that Premiere can not adjust MTS files and spit out anything in lossless format. The quality degrades with literally every single encoding option I tried in Premiere.

You can export lossless compression, or uncompressed. It will be RGB, not YUV like the original. Huge file size, but no degradation from within premiere. Note in FCP , it cannot smart render either, because it has been ingested as prores. You can't export lossless (as the original) on a MAC - it's impossible. You can export an RGB converted rendered lossless from FCP (ie. decoded to RGB, and RGB lossless like uncompressed MOV or animation - but this has still incurred 1 extra loss compared to a PC)

Optimizing includes things like prefiltering, stabilization, denoising - i.e preparing for internet. You can't just encode the footage and expect it to look good. The optimization is required for best results for sites like facebook etc.. that re-encode the footage

Maybe it's something else you are doing incorrectly ?

[pippas]

Then my buddy pops on facebook, and with an "HD Flip" he cranks out videos in 3 seconds flat, uses the program that came with it to fade in fade out, and uploads them in native file format which happens to be "MOV" with literally almost no "loss". The videos look spectacular, and he doesnt even know what 'Premiere' is. Guy hasn't spent 5 minutes learning this crap.

'Learning this crap' -- not really likely to be your favourite hobby, video editing, is it?

Buy an HD flip like your buddy - Life's too short!!

[filmboss80]

'Learning this crap' -- not really likely to be your favourite hobby, video editing, is it?

Buy an HD flip like your buddy - Life's too short!!

I have to agree. The Pro (CS) version of Premiere is a Big Boy tool. Tens of thousands of pro editors worldwide use it without a problem. Let's not curse the software when, obviously, the user is in over his head.