Use Previews - to use them or not for final export
Nanda_KP May 24, 2014 11:10 PMFirst off, I have read through the forum hits typing 'Use Previews' and clicking Ask Now.
I've read an article by Todd Kopriva that says it is NOT recommended to use previews for final export stating it can result in lower quality final output
I've read this thread, which says the same thing: "does using "use previews" button is recommended?ended"
I'm a little confused.
I have Neat Video and RGB curves effects applied to AVCHD footage - and this shows a red bar on the time line. I obviously can't playback in real time.
So what I've chosen is
- Render Effects in Work Area, on all the clips, with not modifying the Sequence settings, i.e with using full resolution etc.
- export the timeline with checking Use Previews
since my previews are rendered using same resolution as source, using them in Export, should result in no loss of resolution, as per my understanding. Is that correct?
I am applying those effects to 3 camera angles spanning about 3 hours (sorry, I know) and I wanted to do a multicam sequence final output.
So I thought about these 2 approaches:
approach 1:
- tune the effects on the clips to my satisfaction
- disable them on source timeline (resulting in green/no render bar which will allow me to playback in RT without issues)
- create multicam sequence from them
- go to each clip in multicam sequence and re-enable the effects and then kick off the Export on the multicam sequence
approach 2:
- tune the effects on the clips to my satisfaction on each clip and render them using full resolution and frame size (to allow RT playback in multicam sequence)
- create multicam sequence from the clips
- then kick off the Export on the multicam sequence
With both approaches, I ran into issues with CS6, in that after I closed the project and reopened it, PPro lost link to the render files - as a result the timelines went back to red and there is no way I can re-link the preview files.
(I posted this on the forum here)
so, I came up with approach 3:
- tune the effects on the clips to my satisfaction on each clip and render them using full resolution and frame size (to allow RT playback in multicam sequence)
- export each clip using source settings.
- reimport the final clips into new sequence and then create a multicam sequence from them
- then kick off the Export on the multicam sequence
When I play the preview files, obviously I don't see any loss in quality even at full screen, since I rendered them without modifying the sequence settings.
So, my conclusion is that using previews for Export is not recommended IF the previews were creating using either lesser resolution or bit depth than the source.
Appreciate anyone confirming my thoughts about or correcting them.




