Issue with H.264/AVC export in Adobe Premiere Pro

[N3SH0m]

I am a beginner with Adobe Premiere so please excuse me if this is a naive question and terminology.
The first thing I tried to achieve with Premiere is to convert/compress videos that I capture by my camera. I have been doing this for long long time using NCH Prism Video Converter and It does a good job. It uses AVI container with H.264 codec and compresses a lot while you don't feel much in quality loss. I have been trying to export a video to the same level of compression with kind of similar quality with Premiere, but I haven't yet been successful. The exported files are always larger and lower in quality. I have uploaded the original captured video as well as samples of the videos compressed by Prism and Premiere on my dropbox:

Original (.mov 131.72 MB): https://db.tt/Qp7TUkPt
Prism (.AVI 18.94 MB): https://db.tt/sREwmMdD
Premiere (.MP4 20.67 MB): https://db.tt/fhmiRUNk

What I'd like to find is the right format in Premiere to get pretty similar quality&size as I get with Prism. As you can see in the above videos, the Premiere one is larger and more noisy (pixels are distorted especially when the camera is moving and you can see noises that cause pixels to seem jumpy/jaggy - sorry I don't know the exact name of this kind of noise).

I tried MediaInfo to see what codec Prism is exactly using. It seems that it is using AVC, but I have no idea on how I can install/use AVC codec in Premiere. Below you can find the detailed information about the codec/format that Prism uses.

I really appreciate any suggestion.

Video
ID : 0
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 3 frames
Codec ID : H264
Duration : 1mn 3s
Bit rate : 2 371 Kbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 23.976 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.048
Stream size : 17.8 MiB (94%)
Writing library : x264 core 125 r2209 68dfb7b

[_Al_]

original frame rate is 29.97, you change it to 23.976 - that introduces that jerkiness , better to keep it 29.970

the difference in quality is kind of expected, something you actually got, because you encode with lack of bitrate, bitrate around 2000kbps for full HD video,and x264 is better for this kind of encoding than that version of Mainconcept encoder in Premiere

-you can try to install x264vfw, where after installing you should find it in export , not sure how reliable it is in Premiere
-or exporting some lossless video or uncompressed out of Premiere and then encoding with x264 encoder
-or install debugmode frame server and avisynth and import Premiere timeline directly as well using again x264 encoder that loads Avisynth script
-or maybe getting some of those expensive Pro MainConcept plugins for Premiere but not sure how it compares to that x264 encoder now ...

[N3SH0m]

Thanks for your reply.
The video detail information I posted with the question is for the video produced by Prism and I am quiet happy with the result. It says "Codec ID: H264", but when I try to export using Premiere, the quality is lower and file size is bigger. So the question is that:

Is there anyway to get same result with Premiere? or Prism is using specific technology and there is no way to get the same result with Premiere?

Thanks

[_Al_]

Yes, there is the way, those first three points I stated above, using x264 encoder. That Prism uses exactly that. And there are free x264 encoders out there. When you pay for x264 encoder it does not mean that encoder is better. It is the same encoder.

[N3SH0m]

I installed x264 encoder, and restarted Premiere, but it does come up in export. It should be a separate Format, or it is considered as H.264 format?

[_Al_]

It should export avi, where video in it is going to be H.264, which is weird but the same thing you got with that Prism, so I thought it is ok with you.

[N3SH0m]

That is ok, but I can not find x264 in the format list of Export. Where should I look for it please?

[_Al_]

you have to look under video for windows, avi containers , not sure how it is marked in Premiere ...

[N3SH0m]

Thanks for your help.
I found it and it, with a little bit of tuning, produces pretty similar result. However, there is one issue. In Premiere, when I select the x264 codec, it does not allow any compression for the Audio (it just says uncompressed). This will make the output file much bigger:

Output without audio: ~10 MB
Output with audio: ~22 MB

Is there any workaround for this?

[racer-x]

Output the audio separately, encode audio to your choice codec, then mux the two streams into a suitable container.

[_Al_]

Mkvmerge gui should be simple utility that muxes mkv, but you'd need to produce audio AC3 stream out of premiere. You'd just drop that avi and audio onto that GUI, select streams, and it would mux MKV. It is pretty fast, it does not re-compress anything just muxing those selected streams into MKV container. BUT I remember that Premiere needed extra AC3 plugin to do that. I'd think it is better to have H.264 together with AC3 audio in MKV container. If creating AAC audio, which is perhaps possible in Premiere, just exporting MP4 with audio only etc., perhaps better to concider MP4 container with H.264 and AAC audio in it. MP4box gui would mux those two streams for you.

There is also expensive H.264 plugin for Premiere, that might export mp4 with audio as well, as picture shows, not sure.

[N3SH0m]

Thanks for your replies, but as it is statedd in my main post, I'd like to do thiw with x264 codec. I followed the way _Al_ suggested, and it works for the video. Now the question is that how I can somehow compress the audio of the x264 video. I can not mux the video in x264 format in Premiere as it does not recognize it.

[racer-x]

Thanks for your replies, but as it is statedd in my main post, I'd like to do thiw with x264 codec. I followed the way _Al_ suggested, and it works for the video. Now the question is that how I can somehow compress the audio of the x264 video. I can not mux the video in x264 format in Premiere as it does not recognize it.

Well then FrameServe out into ffmpeg and encode video + Audio to any damn container you want. Or MeGui, Virtualdub, extc...................

End of problems.

[N3SH0m]

So you are saying that there is no way to do this with Premiere itself and without using any additional thirdparty application (except x264 itself)?

Or let me ask it another way and I appreciate yo hear your answer on this please: Such "professional" software (Premiere) does not have any format/codec built-in to produce videos as compressed as x264 can do with the great quality that we get from x264?

[racer-x]

I'll try to explain so that you can understand. I don't use Premiere, but I'm pretty sure it has the "MainConcept" encoder that CAN export to mp4 (or whatever container). However x264 seems to be the standard that all other AVC encoders try to measure up to. Very few can.

You really need to do your own research on this instead of listening to other people's opinions. Good Luck!

[N3SH0m]

I'll try to explain so that you can understand. I don't use Premiere, but I'm pretty sure it has the "MainConcept" encoder that CAN export to mp4 (or whatever container). However x264 seems to be the standard that all other AVC encoders try to measure up to. Very few can.

You really need to do your own research on this instead of listening to other people's opinions. Good Luck!

As clear in my question, it is very specific about size and quality of videos exported with premiere. I appreciate it that you replied, but if you do not specifically know about my question and are not using Premier, you do not have to reply and just mention some not really useful words. I believe everybody knows that Premiere can export to variety of formats and codec, and this has nothing to do with my question.

Thanks anyway,

[racer-x]

That's just fine with me. GOOD LUCK!

[poisondeathray]

So you are saying that there is no way to do this with Premiere itself and without using any additional thirdparty application (except x264 itself)?

Yes.

Premiere doesn't have anything that will come close to the compression efficiency of x264. You can use x264vfw as you've seen, with uncompressed audio. From that AVI, you can stream copy the video (passthrough) and re-encode the audio e.g using avidemux or ffmpeg, or some GUI for ffmpeg

_Al_ listed the other options to use x264 with premiere - debugmode frameserver / advanced frameserver, or lossless intermediate exported as input into x264, or x264pro plugin for premiere

Or let me ask it another way and I appreciate yo hear your answer on this please: Such "professional" software (Premiere) does not have any format/codec built-in to produce videos as compressed as x264 can do with the great quality that we get from x264?

Correct. But you could argue that compressing it to such low bitrates isn't very "professional" or at least wouldn't be used for any professional purpose... 2.3Mbps for 1080p ?

[N3SH0m]

_Al_ and poisondeathray,

Thank you very much for your informative and useful comments.

[_Al_]

... well but it uses dumb-down MainConcept encoder that is not up to par with free x264 encoder using lower bitrates, and on the top of that its Mainconcept version cannot encode CRF or CQ which is 1pass home user most friendliest thing for encoding, you used it yourself with that Prism encoder using crf=30.0,
it is kind of counter intuitive that videoeditor worth couple of thousands dollars or hefty monthly rent fees does not have top encoder, but it is possible ... they call it NLE not encoder, it is even more exiting today, you can try Aviutl NLE that has x264 export, etc, and maybe it is far more advanced that one would need for simple editing, but as a free tool, it needs more patient approach than those big shiny programs ...

[N3SH0m]

_AI_ thank you. I really appreciate your great comment. Now I feel like that Premiere is not the right program for my applications. How about Vegas Pro? Do you know if it works with x264 in a better way?

[poisondeathray]

How about Vegas Pro? Do you know if it works with x264 in a better way?

vegas is the same way. You can use x264vfw, debugmode frameserver, or export a lossless intermediate for input into x264 or some gui for x264

[markKyw]

If you want to load your files into premiere while keep the origianl quality , then I suggest you try to encode your files by MPEG which may be better to handle your videso, and make sure your videos parameters are the same as the orginal ones.

[turk690]

_AI_ thank you. I really appreciate your great comment. Now I feel like that Premiere is not the right program for my applications. How about Vegas Pro? Do you know if it works with x264 in a better way?

Correct me but my impression is you seem to be sidestepping one of the really only valid approach to this, which is one of the alternatives _Al_ has posted above. This is, to install debugmode frameserver, avisynth, and x264 (with an appropriate GUI, like simple x264 launcher). To be more explicit, after you successfully install debugmode, it will be listed as an export option. Exporting via debugmode will create a small signpost *.avi file, and is done in a few seconds. You take this file and create an *.avs file (which is nothing but a text file created with notepad, consisting of probably less than 5 lines, that points to the *.avi file debugmode exported), then submit or input this file to the x264 GUI, and voila! The quality of your encodes will now be dictated mainly by the parameters you set with x264, as well as additional arguments that you include with the *.avs script (that can needlessly be complicated & produce worse-looking results when implemented with Premiere, like cropping and resizing). If you have not used avisynth before, try now and you will soon wonder how you managed without it for so long.
Premiere and Vegas Pro will work equally well with this method, so getting the latter will not change your situation if you still export with their built-in encoders.

[newpball]

I am a beginner with Adobe Premiere so please excuse me if this is a naive question and terminology.
The first thing I tried to achieve with Premiere is to convert/compress videos that I capture by my camera. I have been doing this for long long time using NCH Prism Video Converter and It does a good job. It uses AVI container with H.264 codec and compresses a lot while you don't feel much in quality loss. I have been trying to export a video to the same level of compression with kind of similar quality with Premiere, but I haven't yet been successful. The exported files are always larger and lower in quality.
...
...
Bit rate : 2 371 Kbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels

Why in heaven's name do you render your videos with those idiotically low bitrates?
And why are you cutting up your 30p video to 24p?

Don't your 1080p videos deserve a bit more respect than being rendered with a lousy 2.3 Mb/s?

So your problem is a user introduced problem, if you render your videos with normal bitrates your Premiere Pro generated output should be just fine. And obviously you should always render 2 pass.

[newpball]

This is, to install debugmode frameserver, avisynth, and x264 (with an appropriate GUI, like simple x264 launcher). To be more explicit, after you successfully install debugmode, it will be listed as an export option. Exporting via debugmode will create a small signpost *.avi file, and is done in a few seconds. You take this file and create an *.avs file (which is nothing but a text file created with notepad, consisting of probably less than 5 lines, that points to the *.avi file debugmode exported), then submit or input this file to the x264 GUI, and voila!

This is interesting, I would like to try that.

So does this work with Premiere Pro CC?
When I download the debugmode frameserver what option do I select?

[_Al_]

DMFS is godsend. With Premiere it works even a bit better than in Vegas, if you use filters that works in YUV, you video stays in YUV all the way, in Vegas-dmfs export there is YUV-RGB (in Vegas internally )-YUV (avisynth can change it back to YUV) process involved. After installing dmfs, you need to know that project properties are exported, not clip properties, using dmfs export. So project properties better match with the clip properties. Then you find debug mode frame server in export and export that avi, you select YUY2 (not RGB if original clip is in YUV). But that is 4:2:2. I guess that dmfs in Premiere has no YV12 export to choose only YUY2, like in Vegas. Most encoders would load that signpost avi Procoder (I think), Ripbot, staxrip (I think), but I'd recommend to load it with Avisynth :
Avisource ("whatever_name.avi")
where x264 encoder would change color space from 4:2:2 to 4:2:0 automatically
or
Avisource ("whatever_name.avi")
converttoyv12()
where avisynth changes that to YV12 (4:2:0), for H.264 encoding, avisynth is handy, there could be more magic done, like resize, filtering etc.,

Then you'd need encoder that actually can load Avisynth script, which most x264 encoders can, not Handbrake though. Not sure if Handbrake can just load that signpost.avi alone as well. After encoding is finished you go back to Premiere and stop serving.

So it is kind of cool, where you frame serve from Premiere to Avisynth, Avisynth frame serves to encoder, where encoder encodes and it is going all at the same time, those applications ask for frames and it is given to them on as needed base. So basically Premiere's timeline is encoded with x264 encoder , going through Avisynth, all at once.