Premiere CS4 lossless exporting

[timwizard]

I'm having some issues with Premiere not compressing things very well. I do a web video show about WoW, and the exported video looks awful. I record using the animation codec, and I've tried just about every lossless option for exporting.

My source:
Type: QuickTime Movie
File Size: 36.5 GB
Image Size: 1280 x 800
Pixel Depth: 24
Frame Rate: 31.58
Average Data Rate: 12.7 MB / second
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0
Frame Size = 1280 x 800
Compressor = Animation
Quality = Most (5.00)
Temporal = Most (5.00)

Output:
Image Size: 1280 x 800
Pixel Depth: 24
Frame Rate: 29.97
Average Data Rate: 87.8 MB / second
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0
Frame Size = 1280 x 800
Compressor = None
Quality = Least (1.00)

I've tried using AIC to record my source video as well. I don't have the hardware available to record uncompressed. I've tried rendered at a bit depth of 24, the source, and max bit depth, and it makes no difference. Optimize stills is on and the quality slider is all the way up.

Any thoughts?

Check the attachments for source/output screens

[poisondeathray]

If you want lossless export , use animation or uncompressed. Filesizes will be huge

This isn't practical for embedding or streaming for a website

If you're saying screenshot #2 is taken from a lossless export, then you've messed up some settings, probably sequence settings don't match the import format

[timwizard]

I compress it in other programs to multiple formats for distribution, so I want a lossless export from Premiere.

My sequence settings are as follows:
Editing mode: Desktop
Timebase: 29.27 frames/second
Frame size 1280x800
Pixel Aspect Ratio: Square Pixels (1.0)
Fields: No Fields (Progressive Scan)
Display Format: 30fps Drop-Frame Timecode
Video Previews:
QuickTime (Desktop)
Codec: Animation
Maximum Bit Depth enabled

I don't usually render previews and don't use them to export, and I didn't in this example.

[poisondeathray]

Why are your screenshots 1440x900? Something isn't matching correctly from your sequence setting of 1280x800

Your timebase is off too, if your source is VFR (variable frame rate) you will have problems. Your source says 31.58fps, which is very non standard. PP CS4 will sample in between frames to make up for the CFR 29.97 sequence settings. The normal behaviour is "blend" clip so you get a blurry mess

When you capture, you should be using a constant frame rate. What software you are using?

Why did you use "least" quality for export?

[timwizard]

My source is VFR. My screenshots are 1440x900 because thats my native desktop resolution and I just did some quick screengrabs from QuickTime. Is there a way to have it repeat frames or something instead of doing blend?

I uploaded a screenshot of my export settings.

[poisondeathray]

This won't be ideal since the timebase is 29.97 CFR. PP doesn't support VFR, so you will get sections that seem sped up, and sections that slow down, and the transitions might be jerky depending on how variable your acceleration/deceleration rates are . The normal behaviour is "blend" so it will subsample by blurring foward and backward frames with the intent to make things "smooth". If you disable it, playback will be more "jerky"

With the clip selected, clip=>video options=>uncheckmark frame blend

I would also try raising quality to max instead of lowest upon export

Your distribution format is unlikely to be RGB444 (more likely flash h.264 or some 4:2:0 YV12 format) , so you could export reduce the filesize substantially by exporting a lossless YV12 4:2:0 format. Unfortunately there are not very many lossless compression choices on Mac, lots more on PC like lagarith, huffyuv, UT, FFV1, MLC, etc... most of them will offer about 1/2 the size of animation or uncompressed. (I think there is a huffyuv mac variant)

[timwizard]

Thanks. It achieved the desired effect of stopping the blurryness. I'll have to decide whether I want blurry or jumpy now.

So what software would be better for editing VFR stuff? I know its not ideal to have VFR video, but having my setup play and render a game and also get a solid 29.97 frames is problematic without investing in a lot of new hardware.

Again, thanks so much for this. I was frustrated to no end about what was causing the blurriness.

[poisondeathray]

There are no NLE's that support VFR editing that I know of.

Animation isn't a very good capture codec: it's CPU intensive, huge data rates, very slow = high overhead. Not conducive for capturing or gameplay

I'm not on MAC, but on PC there are much faster lossless formats to capture in (so you don't get framedrops) such as huffyuv, ut video codec. I'm not sure what if there are similar alternatives for the MAC (IIRC there is a huffyuv Mac variant, you might want to check that out). On PC, Fraps is great too - pretty much everyone uses it (especially WoW players) , because of low overhead

You can post in the Mac subforum asking what other alternatives are out there for capturing