Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 and Warp Stabilizer

[NeilFX]

Hi folks!

I'm in the midst of having a problem right now and the problem being, is it wise to add a 'Warp Stabilizer' effect to a CLIP then exporting it and importing it back in to be used for post? Would there be a loss of quality? I'm doing this to circumvent the issues. Specifically, the preview lags; Second, The export time is a pain in the butt. So individual exporting with the effect might be my only solution. Some may say to have multiple takes of a shot, but I'm posting this just in case it happens or I'm really that curious as to how this would work out.

What I did:
- Film a Movie.
- There's a clip where panning is kind of jerky.
- Thus, I import the clip into Premiere and add a Warp Stabilizer effect to fix the issue.
- Then, I'll export it out.
- I will use the exported clip (with the stabilizer) to finally make the sequence.



Some Technical Specs to add:
-- Captured clips are in 720p. Compressed with H.264 and has .mov as the wrapper.
-- I'm exporting the clip (with the stabilizer effect) as H.264 720p and has a target bitrate of 8 and a total of 16.
-- A clip captured by my camera is usually 50mb+ for 1-2 Minutes. Once I would add the effect and export it out, it would be around 16-30mb.


Thanks in advance!

 

[jmoschner]

Don't export as a lossy format if you are going to be using the export as part of your comp.

Export the file as an uncompressed mov or avi. If you must use a lossy format, then use something like prores 444 or Avid DNxHD.

To help with the slow playback, you may want to render the effects in the timeline. This helps when there are many effects applied or processor intensive effects. You may also choose to reduce the playback resolution. If i recall correctly, right click the Program monitor to change that. when the video is paused, it should be at full res, and this should only affect playback (not the final video).


To speed up exporting, pre render effects and transitions.
When exporting, choose "use previews" (I think that is the setting). This will have premiere use the already rendered preview files instead of re-rendering the effects upon export.

 

[NeilFX]

Export the file as an uncompressed mov or avi. If you must use a lossy format, then use something like prores 444 or Avid DNxHD.

Exporting an already compressed file to it's uncompressed counterpart is something I may not want to do. I've seen some posts discussing NOT to export to an uncompressed if it's already compressed in the first place. Also, I tried the Avid DNxHD but it compresses to a much larger file. Something I want to avoid.

You may also choose to reduce the playback resolution. If i recall correctly, right click the Program monitor to change that. when the video is paused, it should be at full res, and this should only affect playback (not the final video).

Tried that. But having over 30 clips on the timeline is really not ideal. Too strenuous for my processor and tedious to work on as I can't preview individual frames. (Even at 1/4 quality, it is still choppy).

To speed up exporting, pre render effects and transitions.
When exporting, choose "use previews" (I think that is the setting). This will have premiere use the already rendered preview files instead of re-rendering the effects upon export.

I can't even finish the workflow with the Program Monitor as laggy as 30 clips with effects on them.

 

[Sweetie]

Feel free to export it and use it as a "Place holder" and when you're ready to do a proper export, go back and do it.

There are so many ways to do it, depending on your setup. None are either right or wrong, you just have to find one that works for you.

If you are using the place holder method, just don't use h.264. It'll put a lot of unnecessary strain on your cpu. It's great for the file size, but Premiere Pro with h.264 will likely bottleneck with your CPU before you hit any other bottleneck.

 

[NeilFX]

If you are using the place holder method, just don't use h.264.

What should I use? By default my camera captures 720p at H.264 .mov files
I tried the Avid DNxHD codec but it converted my 60mb file to 520 mb.

Feel free to export it and use it as a "Place holder" and when you're ready to do a proper export, go back and do it.

Actually, my plan was to export the clip and use it as is. By using this plan, I wouldn't use the original file for my sequence. But when I'll be using this method, would there be a 'degradation' to the quality of the clip? If so, then can you suggest what I should do? or If it does not, then I'll sure be using this.

 

[Sweetie]

While I haven't personally used it, Avid DNxHD as jmo suggested is a good option. Be sure to set it as uncompressed (not sure if this is necessary, someone else may pipe in otherwise as it may also be lossless and can still compressed??). The files will be huge, but AFAIK you won't suffer degradation apart from the initial degradation you've caused by the initial encoding to h.264 and equipment bit limiting etc..

If you're on a max, Prores 444 is probably your best option. I don't know if there's an option to keep it uncompressed.

Actually, my plan was to export the clip and use it as is. By using this plan, I wouldn't use the original file for my sequence. But when I'll be using this method, would there be a 'degradation' to the quality of the clip? If so, then can you suggest what I should do? or If it does not, then I'll sure be using this.

Every time you use a codec that compresses using a lossy method, you will get deterioration. It doesn't necessarily mean that you will be able to notice the difference, depending on how you're planning on distributing your media. For instance, you need to pay attention to the quality if you're releasing to cinema or you're going to do some sfx work on the footage, but if you're releasing you youtube@480p, you may be worried for no reason.

Video, unlike audio uses a lot of information to store. My video math is a little rusty, but lets say you're doing 1080x1920xbitrate (assuming you're working with 8 bitrate) then you're looking at an uncompressed data size of 2073600 bytes per frame (about 2mb). At 24fps, that's 48MB/sec. 2.8gig per minute, so you can imagine that we need to compress the files. While math can compress this somewhat, most compression algorithms lose data in the process and that data will never be recovered again.

 

[Scorer]

Can't you pre-render in premiere cs6?

 

[Sweetie]

I don't think that'd help with most systems with Warp Stabilizer taking up so much system resources, but it is a possibility on smaller projects.

 

[NeilFX]

While I haven't personally used it, Avid DNxHD as jmo suggested is a good option. Be sure to set it as uncompressed (not sure if this is necessary, someone else may pipe in otherwise as it may also be lossless and can still compressed??). The files will be huge, but AFAIK you won't suffer degradation apart from the initial degradation you've caused by the initial encoding to h.264 and equipment bit limiting etc..

If you're on a max, Prores 444 is probably your best option. I don't know if there's an option to keep it uncompressed.

I might probably stick to Avid DNxHD if I have a terabyte's worth of space. In the meantime I would be using the defaults. But I do get your point on this one.

Every time you use a codec that compresses using a lossy method, you will get deterioration. It doesn't necessarily mean that you will be able to notice the difference, depending on how you're planning on distributing your media. For instance, you need to pay attention to the quality if you're releasing to cinema or you're going to do some sfx work on the footage, but if you're releasing you youtube@480p, you may be worried for no reason.

Would I still be worried on the 'deterioration' when submitting to a Film Festival?.

Video, unlike audio uses a lot of information to store. My video math is a little rusty, but lets say you're doing 1080x1920xbitrate (assuming you're working with 8 bitrate) then you're looking at an uncompressed data size of 2073600 bytes per frame (about 2mb). At 24fps, that's 48MB/sec. 2.8gig per minute, so you can imagine that we need to compress the files. While math can compress this somewhat, most compression algorithms lose data in the process and that data will never be recovered again.

Oh. Thanks for the heads up!

Can't you pre-render in premiere cs6?

Of course I can. The only thing that would set me back on this one is how the Warp Stabilizer uses the resources heavily. If I were to stabilize 10+ footage, that would take a long heck of time.