Exporting without re-encoding?

[Carlos Angeli]

Hi. I´ve done that exact same process before. As far as I know you can´t export your video without reencoding it. Otherwise you would lose the editing you`ve done.

Which software are you using fo the edition? It´s also a matter of choosing the best export settings to mantain the quality.

[Tony Connoly]

I am using Premiere Pro CS5; I have the full Production Suite including Encore if that helps.

Is there a better tool than Premiere Pro for this? All I am doing is cutting some stuff out. There should be a tool that can do this without re-encoding.

If I have to use Premiere Pro CS5, what settings should I use to minimize any problems?

[Tony Connoly]

A quick google search turned up this free tool:

https://www.dvdvideosoft.com/guides/free-video-dub.htm

I hate running random stuff on my PC; I wish it could be done with an Adobe product.

[Carlos Angeli]

Editing from an already edited file has a certain quality loss. I don´t think this can be avoided.

If you use Premiere, you could choose a template depending on where do you plan te reproduce your content. You should also consider the format of your source file (Size, aspect ratio, FPS, Pal or Ntsc, etc.)

When I edited from a DVD, if the source file was for example NTSC, I would stick with a DVNTSC template from Premiere.

Regarding your link, I´ve used a software called Virtualdub that gives you the option of exporting as a decompressed AVI, but I haven´t seen any quality improvement. Only a huge increment in file size.

[Tony Connoly]

Carlos,

The software I linked to doesn’t edit. All it does is trim the file, with no loss in quality at all.

There are other software that join files, again with no loss in quality at all.

There may be times when more editing is in order, in which case PP will be handy, but it really is useless for trimming, joining and re-exporting in the same format, which is a pity. UNLESS somebody knows of a trick we have both missed.

This is really, really too bad also when I think of having to re-encode video from my AVCHD camera when all I want to do is trim and join a few clips and re-export to the same format.

[Carlos Angeli]

Tony,

I checked this software you mention and wasn´t able to do anything at all with it. It wouldn´t import any file wheter it was avi, mp4, mpg or flv. Don´t know why.

Still, in my experience at least, every editing/ cropping software needs to somehow reencode/ join the output file.

Maybe you should give Virtual dub a try. Is free and preety powerful for a non profesional editor software. It has a mode called “direct stream mode” wich is suposed to keep the same input quality.

[Ann Bens]

Premiere does not do Smart Rendering but the Mainconcept plugin for CS5 called MPEG Pro™ HD 4.1.1 or the Codec Suite 5.1 does.
https://www.mainconcept.com/products/apps-plug-ins/plug-ins-for-adobe/codec-suite.html
https://www.mainconcept.com/products/apps-plug-ins/plug-ins-for-adobe/mpeg-pro-hd-cs-4.html

[Tony Connoly]

Carlos-Maybe that program is a dud (though I thought it was from a decent vendor). But the point is that trimming and joining should be very easy. I don’t understand the technicalities, but shouldn’t it be possible to trim a file without sophisticated and expensive codecs, not to mention the time wasted? I think my cheap pocket video camera can trim AVCHD files in a split second without re-encoding them. I’ll double check this later. It’s hard to imagine that it wouldn’t be technically feasible. Maybe Adobe is afraid of patent issues of some sort.

[Tony Connoly]

Ann, that could be very helpful at some point. For the current project I just want to trim and join a couple of files!

[Ann Bens]

Your cheap pocket camera does not do avchd that would be mp4 or mov.
AVCHD is very specific.