Video quality and size messed up after export!

[yeboigangsta]

Heres the run down: I recorded a video and made some edits to it in Premiere Pro (adding some text, a bit of audio, etc) and have exported it numerous times with different settings. Each time after exporting, the new video file with the edits is much blurrier and definitely not HD (unlike the original video file) and the size has changed to a square in the screen, instead of filling the top and bottom. I have googled videos on the best settings for quality and how to fix this and nothing seems to work.

Below are two images taken from the Original clip first, and then my new exported one. The second one is blurry and the resolution is different.

Export wise, I tried using H.264 and AVI files and both have come out bad. I've used the Maximum render quality, changed the FPS to 60, tried the Youtube presets, one video said use Square Pixels and 2560x1440 resolution... I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong and if anyone can help it'd be greatly appreciated.

[Todd Hart]

What is the codec of the original video, before export?

[yeboigangsta]

Original video is an MP4 file

[Kristian Gabriel · Accepted solution]

Sometimes getting quality can be tricky with any video editing software. So many things can happen between your originally captured footage and the final output. It is very easy to lose quality along the way. The following are some things to try or consider, assuming your project and sequence in Premiere are set up perfectly:

1. Export at the exact same size as your original video. I assume that your sequence was set up at exactly that same size. If you are not sure what the original size is, when you go to EXPORT, make sure the checkbox is CHECKED next to WIDTH/ HEIGHT. This will MATCH the SETTINGS of the size of your SEQUENCE.

2. While I'm not sure how your original video was recorded, etc.--your video should almost always be set to a PROGRESSIVE/SQUARE PIXEL document. If this is captured game footage, unless you go out of your way to choose bad settings on capture, all your footage should be PROGRESSIVE (1080P, 4K/3840x2160p, etc).  Under ASPECT RATIO you should definitely select SQUARE (1.0). ANYTHING other than this setting WILL distort your footage in some way and could possibly negatively affect your output. Unless you are using anamorphic or what is called "Thin Raster" footage from a camera like an HDV CAM, P2, etc.--always choose SQUARE.

3. BITRATE SETTINGS (under the VIDEO TAB): This directly defines the potential QUALITY and SIZE of your video. An oversimplification of this would be HIGHER QUALITY/LARGER SIZE=HIGHER BITRATE, LOWER QUALITY/SMALLER SIZE=LOWER BITRATE. Try using a bitrate of 40-60 and see if this improves at all. This would cover most 1080P-4K material. Not that your output needs to be this high, I'm just saying to try this as a test to see if your bitrate is too low (note: knowing more about your original footage and sequence will tell us more about how you should output).

4. FRAMERATE (FPS): Select the original frame rate of your footage. This can majorly degrade your footage if you mess this up. If you select a framerate at anything but what it was originally captured in, you are either losing frames or artificially adding frames. Once again, if you are not sure what the original FPS is, on output, CHECK the checkbox next to FRAMERATE/FPS to match the original sequence fps.

The tricky part of this is that your footage was most likely captured in a highly compressed format and you are re-compressing the file again. Depending on your hardware etc.--sometimes encoding as a higher end file like a QUICKTIME (Prores/CineForm) and then taking that file and re-encoding H.264 can improve your output. Some of the professional environments I work in, that's how we generally do it. Beyond this, if you could give us more information about the Original File you used to edit (size, file format, fps, et), what your SEQUENCE SETTINGS are in Premiere, and if you could give a snapshot or breakdown of all the VIDEO SETTINGS you are using to export--that would be fantastic. We'll see if we can help you out!

[Ann Bens]

Post screenshot of export setting with left tab to output and visible image.