Premiere pro bit-rate settings?

[dtokez]

Hi all. Not done much video work before, just wondering what I should set the bit-rate output too? I have read some stuff saying to use CBR @ 40 mbs as that is what the P3A encodes at, and others say to use variable? If variable what what be the best settings to not loose any quality at 1080p?

Cheers

 

[m0j0]

Ok - it depends on what you plan on doing with your footage. Are you going to burn DVD's? Bluray? Are you going to share on the web? If you are going to put them on youtube or something like that when you send it out select the settings for the place you are going to share it. There is a youtube setting that will allow you to share the video without youtube doing the wonky re-encode/bitrate reduction. So I will say it depends on what you are doing. Are you just archiving footage?

 

[Ralph M]

There is an exhaustive discussion of this issue at:

Target Bitrate in Premiere Pro CC

 

[dtokez]

Ok - it depends on what you plan on doing with your footage. Are you going to burn DVD's? Bluray? Are you going to share on the web? If you are going to put them on youtube or something like that when you send it out select the settings for the place you are going to share it. There is a youtube setting that will allow you to share the video without youtube doing the wonky re-encode/bitrate reduction. So I will say it depends on what you are doing. Are you just archiving footage?

Hey, at the moment just for personal viewing over my home network really. I would just like to output footage that is as good as it can be, no real noticeable compression or loss.

 

[dtokez]

There is an exhaustive discussion of this issue at:

Target Bitrate in Premiere Pro CC

thanks Ralph, I did actually read through that thread before posting this one but didn't find it totally conclusive. What is the difference between target and max? If the advanced shoots at 40/45 mbs where would the sweet spot be so that there was no loss at all? Thanks

 

[4wd]

Right click on one of your original files and it will show the bitrate.
I don't suppose setting the target higher than that will achieve anything.
Best option is to try a few options on a ten second clip.
I find about half the original bitrate does not look obviously worse, and makes the files much smaller if you did want to upload.

 

[Ralph M]

I did actually read through that thread before posting this one but didn't find it totally conclusive.

If that is what you got out of the thread, you missed the point entirely. Video isn't like baking a cake with a fixed recipe. Data rates are dependent on content, movement, color gamut, etc. etc. If you are looking for the best balance of rate and quality, you need to output your work at several data rates and inspect it for the things that matter most to you. THAT is what we discussed in that thread. Sorry we didn't just give you an overly simplistic answer.

So here is one now: The data rate on the P3A equates to roughly 6 Mbps. While Premiere would not be my choice for compression software, it can probably do a decent job of compressing most 1080P/24fps content to about 3-4 Mbps; if it is slow moving and isn't filled with tiny details, a lower number is possible. A lower number is also possible if you are ok with certain compression artifacts. Using a multi-pass method is more likely to give you a good quality result than a fast single-pass will.

 

[dtokez]

thanks, so in theory if I encoded at 6 mbps (same as my phantom) I would not loose any quality at all? I'm not worried about file sizes at this stage.

What is the difference between target and max?

 

[Ralph M]

Look, at 6 Mbps the original 2.7k video was compressed pretty hard. The downscaling to 1080 and retaining the 6 Mbps rate will be fine for personal use.

Target is the rate you want the video generally conform to - the average, if you will. Max is the highest the data rate is allowed to go (under a VBR compression routine) when action, detail, color gamut, etc. demand it.

For what it is worth, the appearance of your video is impacted far more by your processing choices than by the data rate.

 

[Luis V.]

OK if you are talking about the export settings for bitrate then you have options with Adobe Premier Pro. When exporting, you can use Variable Bitrate Encoding or VBR. This means that the exported video's bitrate is adjusted for the amount of data needed based on what is going on in the video. In short, you get a higher bitrate when you have high speed action and a lower bit rate for low speed action. So, if you are shooting a football game with a great deal of action in the scene, the bit rate will be higher when that section (not the whole video) is rendered. If you are producing a slow pan (say an orbit shot) of a building, the bitrate can be lower.

Adobe's encoding can be set for 2 Pass VBR, as the name implies, it goes over the video twice to render, the 1 pass is reviewing once. The 2 pass will produce higher quality but take longer to produce/render. Since you can use VBR then you need to set a target bitrate and the maximum. Safe bet is to set that to 8Mb/s and the maximum at a high rate, say 30 or 40Mb/s. This way the video will render the video at about 8Mb/s unless it needs more data stream and then it will crank up the Mb/s bitrate.

In the end, however, I would worry about the best quality video for my storage and then render with lower bitrates for video that does not need the quality. For example, general videos on YouTube. I do similar things with my photography. I shoot in RAW format. I have done that exclusively for the last 16 or 17 years. I keep almost all my shots. When I render the JPGs after edit, I will save 1024 or 1600 pixels on the long dimension for shots that I will share on forums, on facebook, or other sites. No need to throw a 36MP image up to show on a CPU screen from Photobucket. However, the RAW file is saved and, if I edit, I save the uncompressed image as a TIFF for prints.

I guess the bottom line is that storage is cheap now. An external 8TB hard drive can be had for just over $200. An external 2TB drives for less than $100, why drop video quality by rendering too low? Future proof as much as you can.

 

[dtokez]

OK if you are talking about the export settings for bitrate then you have options with Adobe Premier Pro. When exporting, you can use Variable Bitrate Encoding or VBR. This means that the exported video's bitrate is adjusted for the amount of data needed based on what is going on in the video. In short, you get a higher bitrate when you have high speed action and a lower bit rate for low speed action. So, if you are shooting a football game with a great deal of action in the scene, the bit rate will be higher when that section (not the whole video) is rendered. If you are producing a slow pan (say an orbit shot) of a building, the bitrate can be lower.

Adobe's encoding can be set for 2 Pass VBR, as the name implies, it goes over the video twice to render, the 1 pass is reviewing once. The 2 pass will produce higher quality but take longer to produce/render. Since you can use VBR then you need to set a target bitrate and the maximum. Safe bet is to set that to 8Mb/s and the maximum at a high rate, say 30 or 40Mb/s. This way the video will render the video at about 8Mb/s unless it needs more data stream and then it will crank up the Mb/s bitrate.

In the end, however, I would worry about the best quality video for my storage and then render with lower bitrates for video that does not need the quality. For example, general videos on YouTube. I do similar things with my photography. I shoot in RAW format. I have done that exclusively for the last 16 or 17 years. I keep almost all my shots. When I render the JPGs after edit, I will save 1024 or 1600 pixels on the long dimension for shots that I will share on forums, on facebook, or other sites. No need to throw a 36MP image up to show on a CPU screen from Photobucket. However, the RAW file is saved and, if I edit, I save the uncompressed image as a TIFF for prints.

I guess the bottom line is that storage is cheap now. An external 8TB hard drive can be had for just over $200. An external 2TB drives for less than $100, why drop video quality by rendering too low? Future proof as much as you can.

Thanks Luis for the comprehensive reply! That clears up many of the questions that I had

One other thing, if the P3A encodes at 6mbps, should I still consider setting the MAX bit rate any higher than that - or would it be a waste of time?

I agree 100%, I have a HP micro-sever with about 12TB of space to fill so I'm not particularly worried about file sizes, but still I would prefer not to make them un-necessarily big for no gain

Thanks again for all the replies

 

[Luis V.]

Thanks Luis for the comprehensive reply! That clears up many of the questions that I had

One other thing, if the P3A encodes at 6mbps, should I still consider setting the MAX bit rate any higher than that - or would it be a waste of time?

I agree 100%, I have a HP micro-sever with about 12TB of space to fill so I'm not particularly worried about file sizes, but still I would prefer not to make them un-necessarily big for no gain

Thanks again for all the replies

OK... A pleasure to help... never a problem.

To help answer the question I have to clear something up. The P3A is not limited to 6 Mb/s for a bit rate. The bit rate of the video produced by the camera ranges depending on the resolution and frame rate. Look at the bitrate as the amount of data needed to record a second of video or x number of frames. A 4K frame has 4 times the pixels of a 1080p frame. So if both files are shot at 30 frames per second, the amount of data needed to produce the 4K video is 4 times larger. If you were limited to 6 Mb/s then you would need to compress (which degrades quality) the 4K file in order to be able to write the data onto the card using only 6 Mb/s. Obviously, we do not want to record 4K to get quality to then compress it losing image quality. Having cleared that up, let's look at the P3P camera. All cameras have different bitrates based on video format, compression (if any), frame rates, hardware, controllers (to communicate with the memory cards) etc. I have not tested the P3P to confirm it, but I did do a quick search and found the following info.

According to another thread here, the bitrates are as follows:

4096x2160 @ 24fps - 60mbps
3840x2160 @ 24fps - 60mbps
3840x2160 @ 30fps - 60mbps
1920x1080 @ 60fps - 40mbps
1920x1080 @ 48fps - 40mbps
1920x1080 @ 30fps - 25mbps
1920x1080 @ 24fps - 25mbps

I can't confirm or deny these figures exactly because I have not tested it myself, but they seem reasonable to me and I have no reason to doubt the person that did.

Given that, let's get back to the encoding bitrate. 100% agree with your logic, if the capture of a 4K video was done at 6 Mb/s per second, then encoding to 40 Mb/s is pointless because you cannot correct artifacts or lost image data from capture. However, if you captured at 60 Mb/s then TOTALLY different logic.

The other thing you have to take into consideration is the settings on capture & post process. If you captured the video in a relatively "raw" format, in other words no "Vivid" color, well exposed, relatively flat video and then post process to get your finished product, you may be adding contrast, richer colors and other effects such as text/titles etc. You may need more data to give you a good fluid motion in the scene. In other words, the bitrate may go up. That now ties back to the discussion above and the VBR 2 Pass encoding.

As for the space..... agreed, don't encode video beyond what you will need for your output medium. If you are good with 1080p on youtube, 8 to 12 Mb/s is probably plenty. But keep the original project and unprocessed video. If you need to encode better, then knock yourself out and go for the 4K at 60 frames per second with 80 Mb/s.

 

[m0j0]

Why would you encode 4K at a frame rate higher than the native footage. What is the advantage of that? I usually try to match frame rate. I absolutely use AME. I do use the 3 am studio plugin. I found the video much cleaner. To be honest if I were you I would encode with 2 Passes and a target bit rate of about 12 and a max of around 16. Just remember that if you are burning or intend to burn this to a DVD OR BRD their are bit rate limits for the media.


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[Luis V.]

Why would you encode 4K at a frame rate higher than the native footage. What is the advantage of that? I usually try to match frame rate. I absolutely use AME. I do use the 3 am studio plugin. I found the video much cleaner. To be honest if I were you I would encode with 2 Passes and a target bit rate of about 12 and a max of around 16. Just remember that if you are burning or intend to burn this to a DVD OR BRD their are bit rate limits for the media.


Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

I think you meant "bitrate" and not "frame rate"... I apologize if I made the mistake above. We are talking bitrate.

As mentioned above, yes if the recording bitrate is 12 Mb/s then it is pointless to go above that unless you added/changed anything.

As for Adobe Media Encoder vs. another... Honestly, I have not compared to anything. I have used Premier Pro more recently and have used Nero for my previous videos which have been mostly simple GoPro footage from car club road trips in the mountains.

Ultimately though... I would definately recommend going with keeping the original project and encode for your target. If it's for DVD, then I agree it is pointless to add bitrate beyond 10 Mb/s since that is it's max. BluRay is 25 Mb/s.

In short, keep the full file and encode to what you need.