The output quality is worse than the source in Premiere

[DunnoNo]

It doesn't matter if I match the sequences and settings or up them. I can't get the same result. It always gets blurred. I've searched around and people say H264 implementation in Premiere is terrible hence the result. What's your take on this? Any alternatives?

Here's the media info for both.

The source<<<<

Video

ID : 1

Format : AVC

Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec

Format profile : High@L4.2

Format settings : CABAC / 2 Ref Frames

Format settings, CABAC : Yes

Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames

Codec ID : avc1

Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding

Duration : 8 min 21 s

Bit rate mode : Constant

Bit rate : 26.0 Mb/s

Nominal bit rate : 30.0 Mb/s

Width : 1 920 pixels

Height : 1 080 pixels

Display aspect ratio : 16:9

Frame rate mode : Constant

Frame rate : 60.000 FPS

Color space : YUV

Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0

Bit depth : 8 bits

Scan type : Progressive

Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.209

Stream size : 1.52 GiB (99%)

Color range : Limited

Matrix coefficients : BT.709

The output

Video

ID : 1

Format : AVC

Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec

Format profile : Main@L5.1

Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames

Format settings, CABAC : Yes

Format settings, ReFrames : 4 frames

Codec ID : avc1

Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding

Duration : 3 min 12 s

Bit rate : 30.1 Mb/s

Width : 1 920 pixels

Height : 1 080 pixels

Display aspect ratio : 16:9

Frame rate mode : Constant

Frame rate : 60.000 FPS

Standard : NTSC

Color space : YUV

Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0

Bit depth : 8 bits

Scan type : Progressive

Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.224

Stream size : 691 MiB (99%)

Language : English

Encoded date : UTC 2018-12-18 18:30:30

Tagged date : UTC 2018-12-18 18:30:30

Color range : Limited

Color primaries : BT.709

Transfer characteristics : BT.709

Matrix coefficients : BT.709


[Attachment 47534 - Click to enlarge]

[Attachment 47535 - Click to enlarge]

[poisondeathray]

It doesn't matter if I match the sequences and settings or up them. I can't get the same result. It always gets blurred. I've searched around and people say H264 implementation in Premiere is terrible hence the result. What's your take on this? Any alternatives?

CBR usually produces lower quality at a given bitrate

and you will always lose some quality if you use lossy encoding . Match settings just means match parameters like framerate, dimensions etc... , not match quality

"lossless" encoding is different, but the filesize will be much larger

But you can use x264 or x265 using the voukoder plugin

https://www.voukoder.org/
https://github.com/Vouk/voukoder

[_Al_]

Besides CBR, you also have set I frames only. This way if not having enough bitrate you degrade video .I frame video needs more bitrate than long GOP video.

But if using that vouk's plugin, you can select CRF mode for encoding, choosing quality and encoder distributes bitrate for you. Also I frame only settings (--keyint 1 in that plugin case for x264 encoder) is most likely not desirable for you, it balloons video size , not specifying that it will default to long GOP.

[DunnoNo]

Besides CBR, you also have set I frames only. This way if not having enough bitrate you degrade video .I frame video needs more bitrate than long GOP video.

But if using that vouk's plugin, you can select CRF mode for encoding, choosing quality and encoder distributes bitrate for you. Also I frame only settings (--keyint 1 in that plugin case for x264 encoder) is most likely not desirable for you, it balloons video size , not specifying that it will default to long GOP.

But it's video previews. What does it matter if it's unchecked not to use in rendering?
What's GOP? How does it work?

[DunnoNo]

It doesn't matter if I match the sequences and settings or up them. I can't get the same result. It always gets blurred. I've searched around and people say H264 implementation in Premiere is terrible hence the result. What's your take on this? Any alternatives?

CBR usually produces lower quality at a given bitrate

and you will always lose some quality if you use lossy encoding . Match settings just means match parameters like framerate, dimensions etc... , not match quality

"lossless" encoding is different, but the filesize will be much larger

But you can use x264 or x265 using the voukoder plugin

https://www.voukoder.org/
https://github.com/Vouk/voukoder

Yeah I've tried voukoder. it's better than default but it's still way inferior to Daniel2 Cinergy H264

[poisondeathray]

Yeah I've tried voukoder. it's better than default but it's still way inferior to Daniel2 Cinergy H264

If you think it's better, then why not use that ?

The Daniel2 H264 export uses Nvidia Nvenc to encode, so you would expect it to be definitely worse than x264, maybe even worse than the default h264 encoder (mainconcept based). Maybe you used wrong settings , or invalid testing comparison ? e.g. not similar bitrates

HEVC should give you better compression too than h264 (higher quality at a given bitrate) , you can use x265 in voukoder , or if you think Daniel2 HEVC is better, use that (It uses Nvidia Nvenc too, so you'd expect worse quality)

[_Al_]

But it's video previews. What does it matter if it's unchecked not to use in rendering?
What's GOP? How does it work?

ok,sorry, its some preview setting not encoding setting, you are ok

if you say that something is inferior to some other settings, is it comparable at all, are filesizes similar?

[DunnoNo]

But it's video previews. What does it matter if it's unchecked not to use in rendering?
What's GOP? How does it work?

ok,sorry, its some preview setting not encoding setting, you are ok

if you say that something is inferior to some other settings, is it comparable at all, are filesizes similar?

Voukoder isn't so bad when I use x264.

Ok the run down. The target bitrate is 1080p

Adobe's h264 CBR 30k

Adobe's h264 CBR 50k

Adobe's h264 VBR 30k - 40k

These 3 look horrible by comparison with the source. Details are just not there

Daniel2 Cinergy CBR 30k - better than those 3

Voukoder h264 CBR 30k - worse than Cinergy

Voukoder x264 CRF 23 - better than everything above. Kinda close to the source

Voukoder x264 CRF 15 - better than everything above. Almost looks like the source



H264 by Adobe is crap

Voukoder is still in development

Are there any other implementations of h264/ x264 I could use in Adobe Premiere? Where do I find them?

CFR is a a better thing than CBR and VBR or it's the x264 codec at work?

[poisondeathray]

Are there any other implementations of h264/ x264 I could use in Adobe Premiere? Where do I find them?

x264pro , but not free

Or you can use lossless export then x264 or libx264 in ffmpeg directly

voukoder should be using a recent library, and it's fairly stable. "in development" just means adding new features. It shouldn't stop you from using it. x264 is very mature implementation now. The new developments are just adding support for other devices, other instruction sets, speed.

CFR is a a better thing than CBR and VBR or it's the x264 codec at work?

The quality is x264 at work

But in general,
CBR is generally the least efficient, lowest quality method of rate control. But it's more suitable for some situation like streaming, where you might want fixed packet sizes

2pass VBR and 1pass CRF will give you similar quality if they have similar bitrates (thus similar filesizes) - but you don't know the resulting bitrate ahead of time with CRF . It depends on content complexity. It's almost like a "quality level" where lower rate factors give higher quality (but larger filesizes) . 1pass VBR is worse than 2 pass VBR, and not as accurate .

[DunnoNo]

Are there any other implementations of h264/ x264 I could use in Adobe Premiere? Where do I find them?

x264pro , but not free

Or you can use lossless export then x264 or libx264 in ffmpeg directly

voukoder should be using a recent library, and it's fairly stable. "in development" just means adding new features. It shouldn't stop you from using it. x264 is very mature implementation now. The new developments are just adding support for other devices, other instruction sets, speed.

CFR is a a better thing than CBR and VBR or it's the x264 codec at work?

The quality is x264 at work

But in general,
CBR is generally the least efficient, lowest quality method of rate control. But it's more suitable for some situation like streaming, where you might want fixed packet sizes

2pass VBR and 1pass CRF will give you similar quality if they have similar bitrates (thus similar filesizes) - but you don't know the resulting bitrate ahead of time with CRF . It depends on content complexity. It's almost like a "quality level" where lower rate factors give higher quality (but larger filesizes) . 1pass VBR is worse than 2 pass VBR, and not as accurate .

x264pro. I got a trial but it doesn't even show up in my Premiere. I read that their support is non existent.

Oh I'm not gonna stop using it. I actually love it. I just don't know that much about this stuff. Voukoder seems to be the only to get the best quality in Premiere h264 wise. I don't wanna export footage and waste more time to reencode it and then get onto youtube. So Voukoder is the definitely the way to go

Ok so X264 is better than any H264 hands down?

What's better CFR or CQP? OBS doesn't even have CFR.

[poisondeathray]

I don't wanna export footage and waste more time to reencode it and then get onto youtube. So Voukoder is the definitely the way to go

There is another method with advanced frameserver, to frameserve out and use x264 (or some other GUI) directly, but it's buggy and glitchy for many people

Ok so X264 is better than any H264 hands down?

In most situations, yes .

What's better CFR or CQP? OBS doesn't even have CFR.

Be careful how you use the "acronym soup"

CFR is constant frame rate , not what we are talking about here

CRF is constant rate factor , a method of rate control with x264 encoder - that's what you're using

CQP might be used by them to indicate "QP" which is constant quantizer encoding , that' s not as efficient method of rate control, and disables things like AQ


Realtime capture programs might avoid CRF, because it's more processor intense . You might drop frames and affect gameplay. 1pass VBR, CQ are "easier" to encode, but the quality is worse. Just like you couldn't really do a 2pass encode while trying to cap a game

[DunnoNo]

I don't wanna export footage and waste more time to reencode it and then get onto youtube. So Voukoder is the definitely the way to go

There is another method with advanced frameserver, to frameserve out and use x264 (or some other GUI) directly, but it's buggy and glitchy for many people

Ok so X264 is better than any H264 hands down?

In most situations, yes .

What's better CFR or CQP? OBS doesn't even have CFR.

Be careful how you use the "acronym soup"

CFR is constant frame rate , not what we are talking about here

CRF is constant rate factor , a method of rate control with x264 encoder - that's what you're using

CQP might be used by them to indicate "QP" which is constant quantizer encoding , that' s not as efficient method of rate control, and disables things like AQ


Realtime capture programs might avoid CRF, because it's more processor intense . You might drop frames and affect gameplay. 1pass VBR, CQ are "easier" to encode, but the quality is worse. Just like you couldn't really do a 2pass encode while trying to cap a game

Yeah I meant CRF oopsie! Just a bit confused with all these new things. That explains why OBS does this.

Appreciate the help!

Now it kinda makes sense why some game footage is crispy and others are not on youtube. X264!

One question. Is there way to upscale 1080o to 1440p without losing much quality on youtube? It will reencode my vids anyway. If I upload in 1080p my vids don't get VP9 codec and look like crap. Maybe I can make a high quality 1080p which is upscaled to 1440p and on youtube will look just fine in 1440p

[poisondeathray]

I don't really use OBS, but apparently the " CQP" reference is when they use nvidia to encode. It's meant to be "constant quality" . But it's not quite the same thing as x264 's CRF

When you re-encode off line, after editing, it doesn't matter as much in terms of gameplay, you can use slower, higher quailty settings. But when capping during games, you don't want to adversely affect gameplay . That's probably the main reason

There are different ways of upscaling, many are discussed in other threads. In the end it probably doesn't matter too much since YT will butcher it anyways