Pixelated output from Premiere CS4 via Media encoder

[Jon Barrie]

I can guarantee that you are exporting with a compressed codec inside the QT settings.
It certainly aint DV or Uncompressed. If it is then you have a serious problem with the install. I would beg you to define the codec to DV and see how that looks. Let us know what that one looks like.

Jon Barrie
aJBprods
http://www.jonbarrie.net

[Tam Perl]

Thanks for your response, Jon. I rendered another two samples, just to make sure. I have labeled them “settings 1” and “__2” respectively — each has a screen capture of the settings dialog box, the rendered movie, and a screen capture of one frame of the movie (because the movie itself is very large. I left it at original large size to demonstrate that I have not compressed it. It won’t take all that long to load though, depending on your connection.) The variations are all numbered so as to clearly show which output came from which settings.

These files can be found together with my original samples, in this directory — https://www.tamotion.com/sample/ In the DV version, I also left the pixel aspect ratio at the default — again, to demonstrate how the app handles the file without my changing anything.

Response to your comment re the install — this is happening on THREE computers.

Both I and two colleagues are getting the same results. So even if I don’t know what I’m doing — THREE of us don’t know???

I suspect there is a basic preference or other setting that we may have not set correctly. Or perhaps we are missing the point of just how to export in the new app.

One last set of information that you may find helpful in trying to help us. The projects contain a mixture of dynamicly-linked AE projects, some quicktime movies (photo jpg), and original dv footage shot on a 3-chip prosumer Sony VX2100.

We have been successfully using this combination of input for about a year, and we get very clear and sharp results — the only loss of quality comes from our upscaling the dv to 125% – but we’ve never had anything like this before.

Although you are seeing only a small sample of the output, I have tried to isolate the problem by rendering various combinations — the part with an AE project, and/or the DV, and/or a whole sequence, and/or a small work area. I have tried checking the checkbox for max. bit depth on and off, at various bit depths when this option was presented. I tried so many combinations, I can’t recall them all at this moment, but it doesn’t matter — point I want to make is that the problem occurs all the time, except the DV preset without any customization.

Thanks for listening. Any suggestion will be welcomed.

[Tam Perl]

Update – someone on the Adobe forum suggested I activate the bitrate checkbox and change the number. It’s grayed out by default. I think that is the solution. Busy testing. But initial results are encouraging.

[Victor Medina]

Hi,

I’m having the exact same problem, and it also started when I switched from CS3 to CS4. Did you manage to fix the problem?

[Patrick Doan]

I’m having the same problem with the export settings.

I usually have no problems in Premiere Pro CS3 to export a quicktime with Photo JPG compression at 100% – the results are very crisp. However, with CS4, i’m using the same exact settings, and the output is very pixelated, in addition to the file size being small (around 5mb, instead of 50MB), as if it ignored my settings. I’ve been using PNG compression as a substitute.

Strange?

–
http://www.openland.ca

[Shane Austin]

Same problem here, When exporting using the same settings as CS3 to Quicktime using H264 Codec i am getting a very pixelated output. I think it may be the bitrate, but whenever i change it i go back in to export and its set as 1000 by default, its like a am making the changes and the media encoder doesn’t pick them up. i have tried saving it as a preset but again when i go back in the bitrate is set to 1000 even tho it was saved higher in the preset.

[Victor Medina]

For those who still hacen’t fixed this problem, I fixed it with the solution given by Tam Perl, setting the bitrate manually before exporting. For some reason, this version uses a default bitrate instead of calculating the right one in each case.

Hope it helps.

[Joseph Barnett]

Hello all,

Im having the same problem, how do i change the bitrate manually as it always seems to appear greyed out?

Any advice gratefully received.

Thanks

Joe

[Eddie Lotter]

Choose a preset that does not use a video format that has a fixed bitrate. Both DV and HDV have a fixed bitrate.

Cheers
Eddie

[Vinny Dellay]

How can I get the bitrate button to stop graying out? The only presets I have are NTSC DV and PAL DV… there are no other presets and I don’t have the option of using no preset.

Please help me figure this out…