Blurry Video Output from Premiere Pro CS5.5

[flyinthecoop]

I'm running Mac Lion and used Quicktime to do a screencapture sans audio. I regularly use Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 to edit video from my video camera with no issue. However, I imported my screencapture video to edit in Premiere and when I try exporting it, 15 various times now with different settings each time, the video is blurred. For kicks, I tried editing and exporting it from iMovie and it looks great! I can't figure out how to get that result from Premiere as this software has the editing tools that I need. The original screen capture is 1680x1050.

I'm looking for any advice/tips on how to help this issue. I've seen so many website demos with crystal clarity and cannot figure out what I'm doing wrong. Thank you.

[poisondeathray]

List your:

1) capture settings, video format, frame rate, dimensions, codec, etc.. Use mediainfo mac if you don't know
2) sequence settings
3) file interpretation settings
4) export settings

[flyinthecoop]

Thanks for the reply @poinsondeathray. I'll try to answer your points as best I can:

1. Capture is: MPEG-4 Quicktime 12.9 MiB, 3mn 55s, stream AVC, 445 Kbps, 1680*1050(1.600), at 17.004 fps, AVC (Main@L4.0) (2 Ref Frames), Core Media Video

2. Not sure if this is the correct info: 720x480(1.2121), 29.97 fps, Lower

3. Not sure where to find this.

4. NTSC, 1280x720 15fps, De-interlaced, VBR, 1 Pass, Target 6.00, Max 10.00 Mbps

[poisondeathray]

- That is a low bitrate to capture for AVC (445kbps) , it might ok for a distribution format, but you usually want to start with something higher quality (it only goes downhill from there with generation losses) . The higher the bitrate, the less the quality loss, but the larger the filesizes

- That is a problematic frame rate 17.004 FPS . Since your settings are mismatched with your sequence settings, premiere's default behaviour is to add blended frames ( = BLURRY) to make up to your 29.97 fps . You should use the same settings as your capture format with custom desktop sequence settings . It should be progressive, not interlaced if this is a computer screen capture. The lower field first means premiere will apply a blend deinterlace and degrade the quality (= VERY BLURRY) . If everything is set to progressive, then no deinterlace

You should either capture at a constant 29.97 FPS (if that is your goal), or if you want to salvage what you have, use a custom 17 FPS sequence settings, with 1680x1050 dimensions .

If you right click the clip in the clip bin you can find the interpretation settings. If premiere "thinks" the file is interlaced and you render out progressive, it will blend deinterlace

You can disable frame blending for the clip under the clip settings, and also there is another checkbox in the export dialog box . When you disable blending, the behaviour is duplicates instead of blending (less blurry)

Your export settings don't match either, everything should be progressive , no deinterlace. Since you set it to 15 FPS, it is lower than the source FPS and it will drop frames ( might be jerky in parts) . Ideally you should match all the settings. Source=Sequence=Export . The problems you are seeing are mostly because of mismatches

Your aspect ratio is going to be off as well. 1280x720 is a 16:9 format (1.778 AR), but 1680x1050 is 1.6 AR . 1.778 AR is wider, so you will get black letterboxing

You didn't mention the export format (codec) or what you're trying to do with this ? What is the destination goal ? Youtube? Web video ?