Target Bitrate in Premiere Pro CC

[richardhurst]

Hi everyone. Something I'm struggling to get my head round is the export settings in premier pro for video which predominately will be put on Youtube or Vimeo, shot on the P3P. I'm fine with the basics but not sure what to set the minimum and maximum target bitrates at and whether I should select CBR or VBR. So for the following two types that I mainly use what should I choose - 4K 24fps footage & 1080p 24fps footage. I tend to like the more cinematic feel thats why I choose those fps.

 

[Ralph M]

First, are you even allowed to upload 4K video to YouTube or Vimeo? If so, news to me. Seriously, if you are going to the online video posting sites, 1080P/24 fps is as good as it gets.

The reality is that pretty much any footage you upload is going to be crunched by the video site's processors before it gets to the servers. The choice between CBR and VBR isn't going to matter much; in the end, YouTube's streams (of non-live content) use Dynamic Adaptive Streaming (a form of VBR) to save bandwidth. As for bitrate, that is going to depend on the codec you use. YouTube seems to like H.264 or MPEG-4; I'd stick with them. At 1080P, you can get decent video quality in the 6 to 8Mbit/sec range if it is running at 24 fps and encoded in H.264.

I'm surprised that Premiere Pro doesn't have presets for YouTube and Vimeo; Final Cut Pro X does.

 

[richardhurst]

First, are you even allowed to upload 4K video to YouTube or Vimeo? If so, news to me. Seriously, if you are going to the online video posting sites, 1080P/24 fps is as good as it gets.

The reality is that pretty much any footage you upload is going to be crunched by the video site's processors before it gets to the servers. The choice between CBR and VBR isn't going to matter much; in the end, YouTube's streams (of non-live content) use Dynamic Adaptive Streaming (a form of VBR) to save bandwidth. As for bitrate, that is going to depend on the codec you use. YouTube seems to like H.264 or MPEG-4; I'd stick with them. At 1080P, you can get decent video quality in the 6 to 8Mbit/sec range if it is running at 24 fps and encoded in H.264.

I'm surprised that Premiere Pro doesn't have presets for YouTube and Vimeo; Final Cut Pro X does.

Yes you can upload 4K video to youtube. It does have presets for all sorts but I was just trying to maximise the quality so thought it best to adjust bitrate to match the Phantom 3 as best as possible.

 

[Ralph M]

I just pulled up some 2.7K footage from my Advanced; it is encoded in H.264 at 45 Mbit/sec.

That said, "matching" the bit rate to the Phantom 3's native encoding rate is essentially irrelevant to the final output quality.

 

[richardhurst]

I just pulled up some 2.7K footage from my Advanced; it is encoded in H.264 at 45 Mbit/sec.

That said, "matching" the bit rate to the Phantom 3's native encoding rate is essentially irrelevant to the final output quality.

So do you still just recommend going with the export preset for youtube or adjusting bit rate to 6 to b mbps range?

 

[Ralph M]

Depends on content. For example, an interview with talking heads can use a lower bit rate than sports action. Similarly, is your Phantom footage fast paced with lots of flyover shots, and a lot of details, or is it slow pans and cranes? Ultimately, H.264 video, in the 1080P (2K) 16:9 format, running at 24 fps in going to be somewhere in the range from 6Mbits/sec up to about 20Mbits/sec, depending on whether your encoder is single or multi-pass, how it is keyframed, and what final output quality you want.

 

[richardhurst]

Most of it will be Landscape stuff with flyover shots and slow pans, a bit like this that I did -

 

[Ralph M]

Beautiful footage (actually, I may have seen it before). Looks very good at 1080.

Here is a suggestion: Try two extreme examples. Render 15 or 20 seconds of moving footage at 6Mbits/sec and the same footage at 20Mbits/sec. The difference ought to be obvious. Now, start working down from 20Mbit/secs - say, 15 and 10 - and see how they look. This might take you an hour or so, but it will give you a hands-on feel for how your footage responds to different compression levels and what you find acceptable.

 

[richardhurst]

Beautiful footage (actually, I may have seen it before). Looks very good at 1080.

Here is a suggestion: Try two extreme examples. Render 15 or 20 seconds of moving footage at 6Mbits/sec and the same footage at 20Mbits/sec. The difference ought to be obvious. Now, start working down from 20Mbit/secs - say, 15 and 10 - and see how they look. This might take you an hour or so, but it will give you a hands-on feel for how your footage responds to different compression levels and what you find acceptable.

Ok sounds like a good idea. do you recommend viewing the footage once exported through youtube or some kind of media player??

 

[Ralph M]

Your goal here, as I understand it, is to send good video to YouTube. So, when you've output your evaluation clips, play and compare them on your own desktop using QuickTime or WMP or VLC or whatever.

Once you send the stuff off to YouTube, the control of quality is out of your hands. YouTube transcodes to it own proprietary storage format and then encodes the outbound video on the fly depending on the target device. An iPhone, for example gets a different stream than a desktop PC.

 

[richardhurst]

Right I understand. Thank you

 

[richardhurst]

Ok Ralph I've produced two so far at the two extremes you mentioned. one at 6mbps and one at 20 mbps but I 'm struggling to tell the difference. I have uploaded them to drop box. can You see what you think - Dropbox - 6 mbps & 20mbps test fotage

 

[Ralph M]

Interesting. I can see a small difference in the dynamic range and the shadow detail (the 20Mbit/sec is better), but like you said, it ain't much. YouTube will crunch more detail out of the video than the 6Mbit/sec is currently doing. I guess the bottom line is that you can set your output toward the lower end the scale and still send YouTube good-looking video.

One suggestion in color correction: Pull down your blacks - not a lot, but a little. There is natural haze in the shot, but there is also a "softness" that needs to be removed. If you were going to TV, it would be fine. But for digital device display, you want it to be a bit crisper. I don't have Premiere, but I assume it has a Levels function. See attached illustration using Photoshop.

 

[richardhurst]

Thank you. Yes I agree about the blacks, that was just a quick clip I pushed through to show you. More care taken in the real thing. Premier Pro has a shadows and blacks slider just like Lightroom and also a Levels curve adjustment. So bottom line you think it's ok to export the videos out at 6mbps then?

 

[Ralph M]

If you have min-max, I'd go with VBR with 6 as the floor and 8 as the max. I'd keyframe every 48 frames and at scene changes (Premiere probably automatically does that, but just in case...).

Funny, a long discussion and some tests takes us back pretty much to where we were in the beginning. But it has been helpful to me, too. It has clarified some of my own thinking. Thanks for the exchange.

 

[richardhurst]

Yes thank you very much.

 

[Jade Queiroz]

to export a file to YouTube, use h264 codec. .mp4 better quality and smaller file. Final Cut also has presepadas settings for YouTube.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[HD-Bugz]

That was a very useful thread. Informative, and well mannered exchanges.
Thank you!

 

[airwindow]

Recommended upload encoding settings - YouTube Help

cheers