Advice on export settings

[Chris Wright]

backups would be either dnxhr 444 rgb, prores 444xq or cineform rgb 444 12 bit good enough for several generations. if you wanted pure lossless, like disney archive quality, you’d need exr half float 16 bit frame sequences using many terabytes of data.

and to be completely honest, you’d get much higher quality and smaller file sizes in mp4 h.264 in handbrake than adobe media encoder, but its entirely up to you. just use the masters you made in the first paragraph.

[Lynne Margulies]

Thanks Chris; it’s going to take me a while to decode what you just told me. 🙂

[Mike Smith]

I think what Chris may be hinting at is that “absolutely highest quality” is rarely needed, and will involve very large files sizes. My guess would be that your client, if it had such a quality requirement, would have spelled that out to you. Perhaps it might be appropriate to ask them what backups they might like – or follow Chris’s advice, and simply keep copies for yourself of whatever you supply them. You may want to make an archivable copy of your project, too …

Of course “MP4 and MOV”delivery leaves open a lot of options. It would be good to talk over with client its intended use of your material, and supply MP4 at an appropriate data rate, and MOV in an appropriate codec and data rate.

I’m guessing again, but perhaps one of these guides might be informative for you?

https://vimeo.com/help/compression
https://wolfcrow.com/blog/the-adobe-premiere-pro-export-guide-part-one-codecs/
https://helpx.adobe.com/media-encoder/using/export-settings-reference.html
https://whoismatt.com/hdexportsettings/

[Yair Bartal]

Chris,

Do you have some links showing that “you’d get much higher quality and smaller file sizes in mp4 h.264 in handbrake than adobe media encoder”?

Thanks.

[Lynne Margulies]

Thank you for the info and the links Mike. I will look them over. The video will be used on the web, and also at trade shows. So mainly I just need to know the correct export settings for MOV and MP4 files. My reference to “absolutely highest quality” was for storage on the hard drive I’m sending them for future use. (I’m an ex film editor and even though I’ve been editing on video since 1985, I still can’t keep up with this stuff. I just edit. ☺ )

[Mike Smith]

Me neither ☹ I guess talking to the client will be a good way to find out what s/he wants. For many businesses, good enough so that people watch the story and don’t get distracted by tech aspects is all that’s needed – specially when people are viewing highly compressed versions via web video hosting, viewing on tiny screens, viewing on screens with who-knows-what colour calibration. Though it could be nice to have a decent version at a high data rate in case the trade show team can use it.
Still missing the Movieola or Steenbeck …?

[Lynne Margulies]

The client doesn’t know what they want, just the best! ☺ And sometimes I do miss the feeling of 35mm film in my hands, making splices, etc. But not enough to want to go back. But all this technical jargon does make my aging brain spin.

[Jeff Pulera]

Hi Lynne,

If you edit with Mac, the .mov file could be Apple ProRes, which is very commonly used for mastering. ProRes cannot be exported from PC, so in that case Avid DNxHD would be similar quality. The Cineform codec is also excellent.

Thanks

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Lynne Margulies]

Hi Jeff; thank you for that info. I am just about the export the project using Apple ProRes. Thanks for the advice.

Lynne