Premiere Pro export settings

[nixiejames]

I'm new to using premiere and editing in general.
Is there a way I can render my edited video using x264 crf?

For the container, I chose AVI because it's the only container which has the x264vfw codec option.
I configured the codec to crf 23 preset slow, which is what I'm used to when transcoding videos.
Premiere doesn't follow these settings for a reason I'm clueless about. It just exports my videos to h.264 with around 10M~ bitrate. I'm not sure, but it seems to just direct stream/copy my video. I still have to check later when I get home.

In the meantime, any kind soul out there?

Btw, my imported video is gameplay captured by bandicam. Avi, external codec x264vfw, single pass lossless, keyint 1.

[SameSelf]

Premiere Pro does not use x264 for h.264 encoding. It uses a lite version of MainConcept's h.264 encoder which is arguably worse as you have noticed. The only time I ever export MP4s from PP is when I need a quick director's cut at very low bitrates.

So, you are capturing to an h.264 format, editing that in PP, and now want to export/encode using x264. Hmm, this is a slightly challenging workflow because h.264 is not meant for editing despite the fact that plenty of people do. And getting it out of PP without mangling it is tricky. Some options.

- You could buy the x264 plug-in for PP. But that costs $$$.
- You could frameserve out of PP to x264 using Debugmode Frameserver or Advanced Frameserver, which one depends on which version of PP you are using.
- You could also export a lossless intermediate from PP and encode that using x264, but that is a laborious step.
- You could transcode your footage to a format that PP will smart render.

There are undoubtedly other options I have neglected to think of, but IIWY, I would go with the last option. That is the easiest and will likely get you the results that you desire.

EDIT: I should also add that if you have already built your timeline, you can relink the source file to a transcoded version easily without having to redo all your edits.

[poisondeathray]

Are you sure it's not following the x264vfw settings ? Use mediainfo view=>text and look at the settings used in the exported file

[nixiejames]

@poisondeathray
i was wrong! it did use my settings but now i have a change of heart. i think i want to go with sameself's third option which is to export my edited video to lossless first, then later just transcode it using x264 Encoder. x264 Encoder's crf for me is better.

@SameSelf
Actually, i'm most ok with your third option if that's even possible. So i could edit my video and then export it to lossless? what's the best way to go about this without losing quality, quicktime animation? tiff sequence?

[andkar]

I export to Utvideo. Switched from Lagarith because I was having trouble with black frames (null frames?). I have a 160 GB ssd just for temporary video files. The total time to render might be a bit longer but I frequently find it convenient not to having to render the project again if I'm not happy with the final result or need more than one version, for instance one for storing and one smaller for sharing.

[SameSelf]

As mentioned there are several lossless pathways out of PP: utvideo, lagarith, and even huffyuv, of which I would use the more modern utvideo. There is also uncompressed UYVY AVI which is the cleanest pathway out of PP (q.v. the Lossless Workflows link in my sig) but that requires massive amounts of hdd space. Also, yes, you can export an image sequence (TIFF, PNG, etc.) which will be readily accepted by x264 and offer the added benefit of not having to restart an export from scratch in the event of a crash.

It probably doesn't really matter which one you go with since you are going straight to x264 vs round tripping between a finishing and/or vfx/compositing program.

[_Al_]

I'm for that utvideo as well (if not working with frame server).
There is even sort of this flying around scripts (couple of lines), sameself used that as well if I remember, it is very easy to set that lossless export from Premiere and if not attending PC, running script waits for that avi to be finished, then it starts to encode it using x264 encoder.

[nixiejames]

no matter what i export to, the quality seems to be different. i tested a simple game recording, just put straight to premiere then exported to utvideo, avi uncompressed, and dnxhd. so i tried those three then i saved a screenshot from each export to compare to my original recording. the three exports were identical, but were different from the corresponding screenshot from the original.

here's a comparion:
http://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/201621

the old one is the original.

[poisondeathray]

Not all formats are treated as lossless in NLE's like premiere. There can be other processes applied, usually colorspace conversions, sometimes chroma upsampling. And those have a variety of methods and algorithms

RGB in and out should be lossless, what type of x264vfw "lossless" was the original ? 4:2:0 ? If you don't know use mediainfo (view=>text)

[nixiejames]

it doesn't say anything. only this:
Video
ID : 0
Format : x264
Codec ID : x264
Duration : 7 s 900 ms
Bit rate : 109 Mb/s
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 30.000 FPS
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 3.927
Stream size : 102 MiB (99%)

i configured x264vfw to keep input colorspace thinking that will make my recording truly lossless.
so yeah, my input is that then my export is utvideo rgb. different quality, or color , i dont really know

[poisondeathray]

Keep input colorspace doesn't necessarily make it lossless

And Adobe doesn't even officially support the lossless AVC profile. If you can see it in Adobe, chances are it wasn't even using lossless mode in the first place

If you want everything to work, no fuss, for things like game recordings, I would use UT Video RGB in and out. Then you can use x264 or some GUI for it to compress it to a delivery format . You have to be careful about colorspace conversions, so if the final format was YUV, you'd typically use Rec709 for HD when converting RGB to YUV. If you use some GUI like megui, or staxrip, or others , I think they should take care of that for you. Or it's simple to do in avisynth too

[nixiejames]

yeah, i probably was not recording lossless game recordings. i tried utvideo rgb, both in recording and exporting from premiere. screenshots were the same.

the problem i have with utvideo rgb is cpu usage when recording. it takes more than what i originally do with x264vfw. bandicam's built in rgb24 takes almost no cpu for the cost of size. can you recommend another lossless codec which uses the least resources? i'm ok with exporting with utvideo, but recording no

[poisondeathray]

Do you need really lossless recording?

Did you use bandicam for utvideo RGB in/out test ? Did you look at it closely, or just roughly for colors/levels ?

I think bandicam actually used 4:2:2 internally (at least older versions did) . So it wasn't lossless to begin with . You could tell more easily with colored test patterns or video games with clean uniform colors like colored text or something. The edges would no longer be sharp

Another problem with x264vfw is if you're sending it RGB data , and if you're recording YUV, it's doing the wrong conversion for HD material (it will use Rec601) . But if bandicam is sending YUV 4:2:2, then it also depends on how bandicam did the conversion

Fraps is low on resources but larger filesizes . Huffyuv is lower on resources, slightly less compressed. UT's claim to fame is the decoding speed. The newer versions are significantly faster.

[nixiejames]

i just thought it would be wise to only have the lossy copy in the end rather than recording in lossy format then exporting to lossy again after editing. my initial plan then was record lossless, edit to lossless, then compress lossy.

i already tried utvideo rbg for everything. i'm not sure what you mean about rgb in/out test. i just used it as an external codec in bandicam. it recorded nicely. i imported it into premiere, exported using utvideo rgb again and yeah. i didn't actually edit anything since this is all just for testing, but the result i got after exporting is what i think i want in terms of quality. it was the exact same as it was before importing. and like i said, i'm just not content with how it takes up my cpu.

[poisondeathray]

UT RGB in/out means record in UT RGB, import into premiere, export UT RGB - exactly what you have done

I haven't upgraded bandicam in a while, I can recheck later, but it wasn't capturing RGB (not lossless) . There was an intermediate conversion to 4:2:2 . The compression you use after might be lossless, but it's already been degraded before UT Video or any codec touches it. So if you really needed lossless (true lossless), you can't use bandicam (at least with older versions)

[poisondeathray]

Yep, confirmed. It's not sending RGB when using "External codec" option, it's subsampled before it reaches the codec. It doesn't matter if the "enhanced" capture method option is disabled (it's supposed to be faster in Windows 8,10) . So it doesn't matter what external codec you use. However, the internal rgb24 option bypasses the conversion. That's proper 8bit uncompressed RGB. But there are many times you don't need lossless RGB

[nixiejames]

i've backed up my blurays to mp4s before and i noticed that all of them are in 4:2:0. most likely, my edited videos are going to be in the same colorspace(YUV420) when i compress them using staxrip.

is there a difference in quality between recording UT YUV420, editing, exporting UT YUV420, and compressing to YUV420

and

recording RGB > exporting RGB > compressing to YUV420?

This is assuming that bandicam doesn't convert.


Update: oh so you found out that it does. oh well, time to find another software.

[poisondeathray]

i've backed up my blurays to mp4s before and i noticed that all of them are in 4:2:0. most likely, my edited videos are going to be in the same colorspace(YUV420) when i compress them using staxrip.

is there a difference in quality between recording UT YUV420, editing, exporting UT YUV420, and compressing to YUV420

and

recording RGB > exporting RGB > compressing to YUV420?

This is assuming that bandicam doesn't convert.

You can read up on chroma subsampling when you have time . It's also discussed in many threads here with examples / screenshots
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_subsampling

The end result will be similar if you just do cuts/edits and deliver in YUV420.

But if you're doing other types of manipulations like reframing shots , zooming in, etc... it's going to make a difference . Your "original" will have lower chroma resolution to begin with. You've already thrown away 1/2 the width, 1/2 the height of color data. (e.g. YUV420 1920x1080 means black and white is 1920x1080, but the color planes are encoded only at 960x540). So things like thin colored text will be illegible. Sharp colored borders will be blurred to begin with. When you zoom in, it becomes worse. If you ever need to go back to the master, or deliver in full color, it will already be lost and not recoverable. My personal opinion is if you are going to the pains of recording lossless in the first place for whatever reason - you might as do it right. But it's easy enough for you to do some small tests and see if it meets your requirements

Compared to the true RGB original - For video games, typical areas you will see noticable loss are in things like overlays, HUD's . Things like hit point / life counters . For CG animations, motion graphics, you will tend to see losses more easily too. But on live action footage (if you were recording full color) , it's not that noticable. Human vision is not very sensitive to color . That's why 4:2:0 is used for delivery formats in the first place - the loss is not that noticable in many situations; it's a good compromise

[nixiejames]

Actually I'm not too picky with the quality which is why I'll probably just start recording with UT YUV420. I don't do much fancy editing either since I've just bought premiere. To be honest, I find all that you've said to be overwhelming at first but I don't reject the knowledge and I somehow find them fascinating to an extent. And so I'll definitely read more about color spaces, chroma subsampling, and such.

One last thing.. I have no idea how you learned about bandicam downsampling internally but I trust you with that. So can you recommend me a GUI that can utilize utvideo properly?

[poisondeathray]

can you recommend me a GUI that can utilize utvideo properly?

It's a tricky answer

Premiere can handle it; but no common NLE treats UT Video YUV420 as YUV. Most actually upsample it internally to RGB, premiere included. Everytime you have some conversion going on behind the scenes (such as YUV<=>RGB is the most common culprit), there is potential for levels shifts, color shifts. Something like you saw in your original screenshot. But there are always ways around it and workarounds you can do to fix it afterwards; for example you can specify matrix conversions or colormatrix in avisynth (some of the GUI's you mentioned can use avisynth) . You have to work you way backwards , because it's not clear where your YUV420 conversion had occurred, was it upstream in bandicam, was it through the codec interface itself. Each one has potential to do it slightly differently. Bandicam actually appears to send 422 when using the external codec option, so you're actually going RGB=>YUV422=>YUV420. You basically have to do some tests end to end and figure out a workflow. The only "clean" way is RGB in, RGB out - that's why I recommended it "no fuss" at the beginning - way fewer things to worry about or things to go wrong. But unfortunately, bandicam can only do it with the "rgb24" uncompressed option.