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SLR H264 Footage looks bad in premier
We shot footage on the Canon 5D MarkIII using the H264 All-i codec.
We took the footage directly into Premier to start cutting. We recently switched from FCP to Premier so we could save time and not have to encode all our footage to prores first.We have found the footage looks terrible after adding some minor color effects (B&W / brightness/ contrast). The H264 files look very pixelated and like a You tube video.
We went back and did a Prores test. We converted the file to prores 422 and replaced the footage in premier and it looks much better. The whole point of using premier was so we didn’t have to do this.Has anyone else had this problem? Is there a setting or something we are doing wrong? Any advice would be great!
Here is a link to see the comparison shots (you’ll have to download individually)
https://cookepictures.com/clients/h264vsprores/Thanks!
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13 Replies
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You are previewing in full resolution, yes?
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Yes, we have actually been doing tests exporting out of Premier also. The only way we have been able to get the footage to look good it to convert the original clips to prores and bring it into premier that way. It will take days to convert all the footage.
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wow, that doesn’t make any sense.
what sequence setting/size are you using?
I use AVC 100 for everything, never seen that problem.
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APP uses “preview” files for editing, they do not show your final quality.
Exporting sequence show yield your highest quality, depending on what you’re compressing to.
Sequence matches footage specs?
Chris Tompkins
Video Atlanta LLC -
You can set the preview files to higher-quality if required under your sequence settings. You could, for example, create 10-bit ProRes 422 HQ preview files if that suited you.
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There is no intuitive interface, not even the nipple. It’s all learned. – Bruce Ediger -
Doesn’t all H264 Canon footage look that way when you apply changes to the contrast and colour?
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[Craig Harris] “Doesn’t all H264 Canon footage look that way when you apply changes to the contrast and colour?”
thats a very valid point.
DSLR falls apart when you push it hard.
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You’re doing something basically wrong.
You should be able to:
1. go to the media tab, navigate to your media drive and see all your files.
2. Then double click on one to open it in the viewer (or right click to import and then double click to open), making sure the viewer window is set to playback at full resolution (just right click the viewer window for the list of view options).
And that’s it. Converting to ProRes will achieve other things, but will not improve the quality. If you want to edit straight away with the DSLR files, it shouild be no problem whatsoever.
Or, using the transcode approach, do the previewing, selecting and transcoding in DaVinci Resolve 9. This has a number of added advantages including being able to keep original filenames and source timecode if need be.
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What are your settings when exporting. If you are exporting sequence settings, you may already have the wrong sequence settings to start. Customize your export settings to make sure you have the quality.
Pushing the H.264 files can cause problems too.
Brent Dunn
Owner / Director / Editor
DunnRight Films
DunnRight Video.com
Video Marketing Toolbox.netSony EX-1,
Canon 5D Mark II
Canon 7D
Mac Pro Tower, Quad Core,
with Final Cut StudioHP i7 Quad laptop
Adobe CS-5 Production Suite -
[Brent Dunn] “Pushing the H.264 files can cause problems too.”
The 5D footage is incredibly tricky to work with.
I colour grade a lot of projects and always cringe when I hear a project was shot with the 5D. There are time consuming ways to improve how 5D media responds, but time isn’t usually an option.Craig
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