[Dustin Parsons]

Are you viewing your export in PPro or another application like QuickTime? If you’re looking your exported video in QuickTime or Safari it’ll look more washed out because their color management is different from Adobe’s standards.

Take a look at this thread where I had a similar problem: https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/66624

[Dustin Parsons]

Thanks Alex! The proxies work pretty well while building the project, definitely helps prevent stuttering playback.

What do you like to do though for the final export? Do you export the direct linked clips from AE and bring them into PPro or do you just let PPro render the direct linked clips on export? I guess this goes back to my original question about why it takes PPro longer than AE to render the clips and if it’s possible to make PPro utilize more RAM on export than CPU (as AE does)? No worries if you don’t have the answer, this is probably a question more suited for an employee at Adobe.

[Dustin Parsons]

Thinking about this some more… I remember reading that I shouldn’t use my render files when exporting (despite having the option to) because their quality won’t be as high as when opting to render everything on export. This, it seems, would make Direct Link even less useful since every new version of a cut would require rerendering even if a clip was not changed for the new version. Is my thinking correct here?

Ok, last post to myself – I’m starting to feel like Dr. Maclolm, “See, here I’m now sitting by myself, uh, er, talking to myself. That’s, that’s chaos theory.”

[Dustin Parsons]

I may have just discovered what’s contributing to this: In AE when I’m exporting my RAM is being utilized a lot but in PPro my CPU is maxing itself out while not using as much RAM. Hmmm…

[Dustin Parsons]

Uhoh… I just updated to 10.9.3 last night. Haven’t seen any issues in Premiere yet but I’ll keep an eye out.

[Dustin Parsons]

The film festival will probably have details on the specs needed for the video so I’d check that out before sending something in.

Quicktime was the right format to choose for ProRes so you’re good on that end. Since you don’t have any compression software you can just output from Premiere using the H.264 specs I gave and that should give you a good looking video with a smaller file size than the ProRes version. The H.264 will also play in a lot more places than ProRes (it’ll play on every computer, can be uploaded to Vimeo/Youtube etc…). Also, I think you’re okay using the same H.264 specs as the export settings for the other video as well – you might want to check that it can play in real time off a CD though, if the playback is stuttering try lowering the bitrate until it plays without issue.

I’m not familiar with the trial version of PPro but you should be able to mix formats (5D and iPhone) on the same timeline in Premiere without any problem. To make sure your sequence settings are correct for the footage you’re working with: make a new sequence and drag one of the 5D clips onto the timeline, PPro will ask you if you want to “change the sequence settings to match the clip” choose “yes” and you’re good to go. Always conform the sequence settings to the best footage you have, in this case it’s the 5D.

[Dustin Parsons]

Yeah, I’ve pretty much ignored the render bars since moving over to PPro since everything plays in real time. I’ve really only had to render clips Direct Linked to After Effects that have lots of effects.

[Dustin Parsons]

H.264 won’t give you the highest quality but you’ll definitely want to transcode to a H.264 version at some point because the file size for the original will be massive in comparison. Also, H.264 shouldn’t give you a greatly reduced quality unless the bit rate is really low – at 100% I think it should look fine but it sounds like there’s an issue with your encode.

I’d output to these specs from PPro
Video:
Codec: Apple ProRes 422 (you can do ProRes 422 HQ but I don’t think that’ll make a difference because you’re working with iPhone footage)
Frame Size: Native (whatever it was shot at)
Frame Rate: Native
Field Order: Native
Aspect: Native
Render at Maximum Depth: Yes
Depth: 48 bit
Use Maximum Render Quality: Yes

Audio:
Codec: Uncompressed
Sample Rate: 48000 Hz
Channels: Stereo
Sample Size: 16 bit

From there you can take it into Adobe Media Encoder and transcode to an H.264 – here are the specs I’d use for that:

Video:
Codec: H.264
Frame Size: Native (whatever it was shot at)
Frame Rate: Native
Field Order: Native
Aspect: Native
Profile: High
Level: 4.0
Render at Maximum Depth: Yes
Bitrate Encoding: VBR, 2 pass
Target Bitrate [Mbps]: 20
Maximum Bitrate [Mbps]: 24
Key Frame Distance: 24
Use Maximum Render Quality: Yes

Audio:
Codec: AAC
Sample Rate: 48000 Hz
Channels: Stereo
Audio Quality High
Bitrate [kbps]: 320

Multiplexer:
Multiplexer: MP4
Stream Compatibility: Standard

Hope this helps.

What software did you use to record the video on your iPhone? I’m guessing it’s a time-lapse?

[Dustin Parsons]

Unfortunately, it’s Apple software that does it. I ran into a similar problem https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/335/66624

[Dustin Parsons]

Adobe Feature Requests

Let’s get this implemented in the next update! …or the update after that.