[Ivan Myles]

Glad it worked out for you.

[Ivan Myles]

I was able to recreate the issue. It can be resolved by creating an embedded sequence to animate the target clip. Insert the second sequence into the main timeline and apply the Track Matte Key.

FYI: My BKM is to place mattes in the uppermost video track and turn the track output off.

Track Matte Animation

[Ivan Myles]

Agreed. Only reasons I could think of were ease of injestion, or if the studio is performing the final encoding. If they are only processing the audio then an all intra-frame QuickTime H.264 with uncompressed audio should be acceptable.

[Ivan Myles]

[Jake Green] “.. lets say I have a 4 minute final clip full 1080P? Can someone give me a range on what size that should be between?”

Here are my guidelines for H.264 bitrates in bits/pixel:

0.07 bpp – minimum quality for online streaming (YouTube, Vimeo)
0.12 bpp – Apple standard for online streaming
0.20 bpp – upper limit for online streaming
0.40 bpp – good quality local viewing or further compression
0.70 bpp – high quality local viewing (DVD/Blu-ray)

For online submission and second transcode I recommend 0.2-0.4 bpp H.264, or about 10-20 Mbps for 1080p at 24-25 fps. This correlates with Vimeo’s compression guidelines.

Therefore at 10-20 Mbps a 4 minute video stream would be 300-600MB.

[Ivan Myles]

Add a Track Matte Key effect to link the mask to the desired video layer. Please refer to Adobe Help for more information:

Superimposing and transparency
Create transparency with the Track Matte Key effect

[Ivan Myles]

I just watched the trailer for Y Tu Mama Tambien and it looks pretty cinematic to me. The Kenneth Anger clips I watched appear to focus mostly on color balance, masks, opacity layers, and Y levels.

To get the right answer, it helps to ask the right question. Can you identify specific parameters such as color cast, saturation, luminance profile, et cetera; or at least provide specific clips that capture what you mean?

[Ivan Myles]

Is the sound studio using the audio stream from your file, or will they be synch’ing separate recordings? What is your workflow after the audio is mixed?

I suggest contacting the studio to discuss the situation. Otherwise try exporting two files: one from Premiere Pro as outlined above, and one from QuickTime Pro with the “None” codec and Fast Start. In both cases be sure the audio is uncompressed.

The uncompressed YUV file from Premiere Pro should be fine. However, if the sound studio absolutely demands Fast Start they can use the QT “None” format. Just take their mixed audio file and insert it back into the Premiere Pro project for final color correction and/or compression.

[Ivan Myles]

You could use QuickTime Pro ($35), but I don’t think it is necessary. I understand the desire to conform to all the specs, but Fast Start is used for streaming; the encoder places header info at the start of the file so it can start playing before the download is complete. Uncompressed YUV is not an appropriate format for streaming.

Also: Given that the request came from the sound guy, be sure to export uncompressed audio.

[Ivan Myles]

He is probably referring to uncompressed YUV, which is formatted as Y’CbCr with 4:2:2 chroma subsampling. By comparison, QuickTime None is formatted as uncompressed 4:4:4 RGB.

Open the Export panel and select the following parameters in the video tab:

Format: QuickTime
Video Codec: Uncompressed YUV
Width: 720
Height: 576
Frame Rate: As required
Aspect: As required
Depth: 24-bit (i.e 8-bit per channel)

There might not be an option for Fast Start depending on which version of Premiere Pro you are using.

[Ivan Myles]

H.264 is compressed significantly more than QT Animation. Try exporting a short clip with the following settings to verify whether there is an encoding issue:

Video Tab:
– Format: H.264
– Level: 5.0 or 5.1
– Profile: High
– VBR, 2-Pass
– Target Bitrate: Max
– Max Bitrate: Max
– Maximum Render Quality Enabled
– Maximum Bit Depth Enabled
– Key Frame Distance: 1/2 of frame rate or about 10-15 frames

Multiplexer Tab:
– MP4
– Stream Compatibility: Standard