H.264 Question

DSLR Video

H.264 Question

Posted by Nate Hanson on June 14, 2010 at 7:14 pm

I apologize in advance if this is a bit noobish – but I can’t seem to find a definitive answer.

I bring h.264 footage from a Canon T2i into Premiere Pro. I’m able to edit just fine (nothing too fancy, one or two layers max). If I send my sequence to the media encoder, and I encode it as h.264, am I going to screw it all up? What about encoding it as Animation, and then sending it back through media encoder to get it back to h.264? (That seems all wrong…right?)

I know about Cineform NeoScene, but the household budget is maxed for the time being. So, for this month anyway, how do I get my raw footage to a deliverable state without re-encoding it or losing data?

Thanks for any help,

Nate Hanson
Pilothouse Films

Nate Hanson replied 15 years, 12 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
3 Replies

Greg Brand
June 14, 2010 at 7:39 pm

hey there Nate

it’s best not to edit the Native H.264 files.
unless you have prem CS5 and the DSLR sequence presets.

It’s best to use mpeg streamclip from https://www.squared5.com (it’s free)
to convert your clips for editing.

to save some time you can just make exact name and extension copies of all your clips
then in prem, select all the native 550D clips, right click and make offline.

then reselect and link media, navigate to the new Proress or XDcam EX clips (converted through mpeg streamclip) and re-render the timeline.
maybe change your timeline sequence settings or simply copy paste all the clips to a correct sequence.

once you done render out as quicktime animation codec (highest possible quality)
then encode that rendered clip with Quicktime pro back into H.264

i know it seems like a bit of a long process but that is how to get the best quality out of your clips for H.264 web uploads.

Vimeo has some nice tips on quicktime encoding settings.
just play around with the bitrates to get higher quality or lower file size.

hope that helps?
Greg

https://gregbrand.co.uk
Nate Hanson
June 14, 2010 at 7:59 pm

Wow – thanks, Greg! Exactly what I needed!

Nate Hanson
Pilothouse Films
Nate Hanson
June 17, 2010 at 6:32 pm

Hey Greg, I got home and found that my version of MPEG Streamclip doesn’t have Prores or XDCAM EX presets. I’m on a PC (sorry, forgot to mention that). Is there a recommended codec that MPEG Streamclip can convert to on a PC?

Nate Hanson
Pilothouse Films

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