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Export file size nightmare!
Hi there,
I have a problem with Premiere Pro CS3 when exporting video files, here are the basics:
1. Footage is recorded using a little, cheap Toshiba HD cam. Not the best quality but it does record in 1080p. The camera stores the films on an SD card in .MOV format. For example – one of the clips I’m using is 781MB for 12mins of footage.
2. In the project I’m doing, I’m also using standard PAL (720X576) footage from a DV cam. As the final render will be this size, I have no need for the HD footage to be in HD, plus, my computer struggles with it.
3. To solve this, I’m importing the HD clips into a project set-up as PAL. Obviously, this means the HD footage is too big, so I use the “Scale” slider to scale it down. As it’s widescreen, it looses a bit of the edges, but this is fine. As far as the project is concerned, I now have the video at 720×576 and it looks OK.
4. Now I want to export the video as PAL. My presumption is that this will mean the HD clips will then be PAL, meaning I can work as easily with them as the clips from the DV tapes. As far as my project and computer is concerned, it will be just as though they were always in PAL.
THE PROBLEM:
When I export this simple 12 minute clip, I choose “Microsoft DV AVI” (I’ve also tried “Microsoft AVI”) and go to the video settings. I choose “DV PAL” with a frame rate of “25fps” and a Pixel Aspect Ratio of “D1/DV PAL (1.067). The “quality” slider is not available.When I then click save, it takes around 1hour30mins to export a 12 minute clip. The resulting file is over 10GB by the time it is only half-way through rendering!!!
Why is this, it’s mental. Why is a PAL sized clip about 20 times larger than the original 1080p file?
Am I missing a simple trick here?
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2 Replies
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We’ll need to know where are the files going, who is going to see them and on what medium?
DV AVI spits out about 14 Gigs per hour.
Microsoft AVI could be just about any format. If it’s uncompressed (compressor set to none), you’ll get about 100 GB per hour of exported footage, but that will also get you a lossless export which is best for further editing, effects and archiving.
Smaller format size can be achieved through Windows media / Flash / H.264, but again, we’ll need to know where the files are going to give a compression recommendation.
Vince Becquiot
Kaptis Studios
San Francisco – Bay Area -
Your export settings seem ok, but I would ask what the original Premiere project setting is (should be PAL DV).
Also, rather than using Scale within the Adobe Motion effect, simply use “Scale to Frame Size” on the clips. This is accessed by right-clicking a clip and choosing that option. Easier, if you haven’t yet edited, is to enable Scale to Frame in Preferences, then clips are scaled automatically upon import (does not affect clips already imported though).
I did notice that you may be mixing 4:3 and 16:9, in that case, you may need to use Scale if you wish to expand the HD clip to fill the 4:3 screen and remove letterboxing.
I don’t know why your export file is so big, but it may take a long while either way converting HD to SD.
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers
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