I want to do my encode using Handbrake. what is a good mezzanine export from Premiere?

[Dan Sakols]

QT Pro has some nice capabilities, its convenient, but from what I see, doesn’t support High Profile, just Main, so many of the advanced AVC tools like CABAC aren’t supported, and therefore the compression efficiency is less. Id be happy to learn I am wrong. check it out.

d

[Dan Sakols]

Ryan, I want to export a ProRes project without transcoding. I assume checking the “Match Sequence Settings” box in Export Settings assures this. Im asking because my 15 min sequence took well over an hour, making me suspect some trans coding may have been going on.

dan

[Ryan Holmes]

If you want ProRes as an export, just select it from the choice of codecs under “Quicktime.” If you use “Match Sequence Settings” you need be positive that you set those up as ProRes.

Did you check the Quicktime file you output from PPro? What codec is it using?

I’ve setup various ProRes presets in PPro so I can just select them quickly (720p30, 1080p30, 1080p24, etc.). If you have to export a lot it’ll save you time.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
vimeo.com/ryanholmes

[Christoph Hagemeier]

Hi there!

… I would like to export a video from Premiere Pro in the best possible Quality for a final compression via handbrake. The video was shot on a Sony a6300 (4K, 23.976p).

However, when I choose DnXHR as an intermediat codec, the Output file does not contain any Video. It’s simply black.

Any ideas on that?

What might be the reason for that?

Cheers,
Chris

[Ryan Holmes]

[Christoph Hagemeier] “However, when I choose DnXHR as an intermediat codec, the Output file does not contain any Video. It’s simply black.

Any ideas on that? What might be the reason for that? “

There’s plenty of reasons that could be in play:
(1) Confirm you have the DNxHR codec installed on your system
(2) The video track in Premiere is muted
(3) The clip is disabled on your timeline
(4) The “Export Video” check box is unchecked in the “Make Movie…” dialog box
(5) You have an incompatible version of Adobe Premiere for use with DNxHR? (maybe you’re using CS3, or CS4 or something??)
(6) Have you tried other codecs? JPEG, MXF, h.264? Not that you want to use any of those, but to verify that this is strictly codec related.

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Christoph Hagemeier]

Hi Ryan,

thank you very much for your help.

The codec is installed (LE v2.7.1). The Problem of getting a “black” video file seems to be restricted to UHD Resolution (DnXHR). Full HD DnXHD seems to work.

However, I think the uncompressed Quicktime formats might also work as an intermediate Format for my purpose.

From the quality point of view, which uncompressed quicktime Format is the best for my a6300 4K footage, being cut in Premiere Pro and exported from Premiere for encoding with Handbrake?

The Options are:
– uncompressed RGB, 8-Bit
– uncompressed YUV 10-Bit 4:2:2
– uncompressed YUV 8-Bit 4:2:2

It does not matter if the output file size is rather gigantic. Quality is of highest importance to me.

Are these uncompressed quicktime formats comparable (quality wise) to the DnXHR formats?

Thanks for your help,
Chris

[Jody Bruchon]

There is a free (open source) mezzanine codec for Windows and Mac OS called Ut Video Codec Suite that seems to work much better than Lagarith. I have been using it recently as an export from Premiere Pro for final encoding in Handbrake (I have done some work that is mostly static images and Handbrake produces drastically smaller files for that kind of content) and I have been very happy with the results. I was using Lagarith until I started having issues with a short period at the start of videos that consisted of a grey-cast pause of the first frame for about half a second which is unacceptable.

[Chris Wright]

is it smaller than quicktime png, can’t remember(I’m pretty sure png is the smallest)? both are only 8 bit and fully uncompressed, so pretty big file sizes. you can get several generations out of high bitrate wavelet codecs, prores 4444, dnxhr, cineform type 5. diminishing returns is the name of the game. hd space and playback speed. if you’re having trouble playing back wavelet, imagine, fully uncompressed.

[Jody Bruchon]

I don’t know if it is smaller than QT PNG, but I’m on Windows so I do not have that as an option anyway. UtVideo is technically 8-bit but it has a lot of different “versions” to cover a lot of different color spaces: RGBA, RGB, and both Rec.601 or Rec.709 in 4:4:4, 4:2:2, or 4:2:0 subsampling. For mezzanine exports where quality is priority and source material isn’t fully RGB (i.e. CG) I’m dumping to Rec.709 4:4:4 and for exports to be encoded with Handbrake I dump to Rec.709 4:2:0 since there is no benefit to the other options and some of the UtVideo options are simply not readable by Handbrake.

The main thing for me is that it’s a compressed but lossless codec that Handbrake handles internally. Combined with good x264 advanced options and a video that has a lot of non-moving parts, I’ve had the final product in Handbrake with this workflow come out to 1/12 the size with no quality drop compared to Adobe’s built-in MP4 encoder.

[Greg Janza]

I think it bears another mentioning that if you are working with Premiere on a newer computer with a supported graphics card, a solid amount of RAM and a fast media drive/raid, there should be no need to transcode any media. One of the great things about Premiere is that it can handle virtually any kind of media on the fly.

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