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Quality Degradation
Hello, my first time posting to this wonderful group.
I remember using Premiere many years ago now, but that was then, and this is now. I re-installed the application this evening and would like to strip a few animation clips together, etc.
However, I noticed I am having a lot of lost quality. I am guessing some sources may be pixelation due to re-sizing issues, compression issues, and so forth.
I would like to know what tips the experts have on trying to KEEP the original quality in your vid-clip sources. I have a large manual here and will continue reading through it this month but if someone can give me a quick start on the big no-no’s I’d be willing to listen.
Thanks.
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4 Replies
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Generally, you’ll want to encode for delivery directly out of Premiere. Some people will add unnecessary steps into their process that add additional generations of degradation.
That is to say, if you are using DV source, you would edit in Premiere than export the compressed file. If you need to do further processing, you should export the clip as ‘Uncompressed’ (lossless).Scaling in Premiere should be done with Effects/Distort/Transform, not the clip’s motion parameter.
Up-scaling hurts, but it’s sometimes necessary. I believe Digital Anarchy Resizer is available for Premiere. I’ve used it in After Effects and it’s great.As far as maintaining quality, it sounds like you know exactly what you need to be aware of ‘re-sizing issues, compression issues, and so forth.’.
Also, sometimes adding the Gaussian Blur filter (or any filter set to ‘0’ will improve the look of certain clips, especially on Premiere titles. This step is unnecessary if you have already applied the Transform filter.
Also consider intentionally ‘damaging’ your clip by adding noise or overlays, in a situation where you want to hide some ugliness.
Just some ideas
Vince
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Right..
Well I decided to stick with a certain preset size (720-480), and then I took my animation clips, and instead of importing them as a complessed .mov file, I chopped it up into many images keeping them at the preset size, then imported those images to premiere, so premiere will be the only one doing the compression, etc.
The weird thing is, if I hover over all my images in the previewer they look sharp and crisp. but the instant I hit the PLAY button, all the details look pixelated in premiere. I can’t figure out why it does this. Why only when I hit play? Is it due to some interlacing issue, or other element?
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Maybe, right-click on the Premiere monitor to ensure that you have it set to High Quality.
Make sure your project rendering settings are set to Uncompressed, it might default to CinePak or something?
Check to see if ‘Scale Clips’ is enabled in your project settings.
When you drop your clips in the timeline, does a red line appear along the top of the track. If so, the clip needs to be pre-rendered before accurate preview. simply press Enter.
You indicated a frame size of 720×480. Your issue could be one of Pixel Aspect Ratios.
If your project is either DV (720×480) Full Screen or Widescreen and your source is 720×480 Square Pixel, that could also be part of the problem.
If you are creating Square Pixel graphics for DV the frame sizes should be 864×480 for Wide or 720×534 for Full. Than, they can be scaled to 720×480 in Premiere (with the transform filter) or in Photoshop.Vince
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Vincet, thanks for your ideas. I am hoping it really is something as simple as tweaking square pixels or something. I will do more experimentation with that shorty.
Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s a screen-shot showing the pixelation issue as of now
https://img06.picoodle.com/img/img06/3/4/4/obsolete/f_pixelatedm_658d831.jpg
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