Video Render Questions!?

USNFilms

USNFilms

Hi,

I just recently purchased the Rebel T3i and I have a few questions. I've seen some youtube videos shot with the t3i and the kit lens, which I have, and the video is in superb quality. Now, when I shot a quick video, put it in premiere, and then uploaded it, it was nowhere near the superb quality of the other video shot with the same camera.

This is frustrating and I must have rendered and uploaded sooo many different formats and I still can't get the desired look. Here are my questions:

1. I edit and render in premiere, what settings should I have the T3i record in?
2. What (in your opinion) is the best rendering settings for premiere cs5 for the best HD video with a EOS t3i?
3. Anything else I should know??

Thanks in advance
 
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Make sure you're using the same DSLR settings in Adobe Premiere CS5 that match the Canon T2i/T3i, usually 23.976/24P 1080P or 29.97/30P 1080P or 720P.

When you export, use H.264 settings and set it for 2 pass VBR (Variable Bit Rate) with the quality on high.
 
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Mr Boo, is CS5 able to handle the h264 .mov files without needing an intermediary?

I'm still using CS4 and typically need to convert, otherwise the timeline bogs down horrendously after a minute or so.
 
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Zensteve said:
Mr Boo, is CS5 able to handle the h264 .mov files without needing an intermediary?

I'm still using CS4 and typically need to convert, otherwise the timeline bogs down horrendously after a minute or so.
Click to expand...

I have no idea. I'm still on CS4 myself, and use an intermediary codec (Matrox with the accelerated real time hardware). I just know that theoretically, you can edit natively the MOV files from the camera in CS5.

We're about to upgrade to CS5.5
 
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In my opinion, Sonnyboo, if you're just going to straight cut H.264 in CS5 and not do a lot of processing - the results are decent. I still use an intermediate codec for what I think is the best result, but I'm always open to suggestion.
 
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CamVader said:
In my opinion, Sonnyboo, if you're just going to straight cut H.264 in CS5 and not do a lot of processing - the results are decent. I still use an intermediate codec for what I think is the best result, but I'm always open to suggestion.
Click to expand...

Cineform's NEO SCENE is pretty rocking as a great editing codec, and especially for archiving.

I just found out this weekend that Matrox's codec is now freely available to anyone, so now I can edit at home again with some offline editing. http://www.matrox.com/video/en/support/windows/vfw_software_codecs/downloads/softwares/version1.0/
 
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Perhaps the reason your video doesn't look like the videos on youtube is that you haven't done the same post processing. It's common to do some color grading, upping the saturation and adding some other effects like vignetting.

I mean, changing the format shouldn't really change what the video looks like.
 
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superamazing said:
I mean, changing the format shouldn't really change what the video looks like.
Click to expand...

You can only stomp on H.264 so much before it degrades beyond repair is my experience. It's not an editing format, but NLE makers of found work arounds. If it's important work, my feeling is an intermediate is the way to go. It will become H.264 again in many cases as a final compression render.
 
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sonnyboo said:
Make sure you're using the same DSLR settings in Adobe Premiere CS5 that match the Canon T2i/T3i, usually 23.976/24P 1080P or 29.97/30P 1080P or 720P.

When you export, use H.264 settings and set it for 2 pass VBR (Variable Bit Rate) with the quality on high.
Click to expand...

Thanks for these settings I'll make sure to try them.

But also, Many of you are talking to me about an intermediary codec? Which I have no idea what that is.

I google searched and found an interesting article here. In the article it says,

Cineform
This is a high-quality production codec that works on both Mac and PCs and can scale from standard-definition to 4k film resolution. Cineform is a wavelet codec (not a DCT codec) that.s often used as a digital intermediary codec for editing video captured in formats like HDV that, because of the way they.re compressed, are difficult to edit on many systems.

Can anyone please explain to me exactly what this means/ what a intermediary codec is?

Thanks
 
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It means that it is used for the editing (intermediary) stage of the production process. Video is captured using a certain codec (like h.264, the one those guys ^^^ are talking about), edited in another, and exported to a delivery codec (like flv, the one YouTube uses, or MPEG 2, for DVDs).

The reason we use intermediary codecs is they are less compressed, and easier to manipulate. The fact that H.264 is highly and efficiently compressed is actually dangerous for editing because it means quality can be lost while color grading, because the data isn't as resilient (or, that's what I've heard, although I'm not quite sure why that might be). Also, since most of the data for the image is stored in key frames (every 24th frame or something like that), editing with these codecs is slower because your computer has to look all around for the relevant data. Intermediary codecs are much less compressed, and use interframe compression (each frame is a key frame) so that they can be played back easier and faster.

There may be other advantages as well--please let me know if I'm missing anything!
 
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sonnyboo said:
Cineform's NEO SCENE is pretty rocking as a great editing codec, and especially for archiving.
Click to expand...

I mentioned Cineform here

CODEC stands for COMPRESSOR/DECOMPRESSOR. It's the software that allows higher quality video from the various file sizes by mathematical formulas of compression. What that means to us is:

Higher Compression = smaller file size, lower quality

Lower Compression = bigger file size, better quality
 
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Not sure if this helps, but my basic workflow for Canon 7D and Canon t2i is to convert the native H.264/MOV files to AVI files compressed using Lagarith (lossless codec - uses something like basic RLE encoding... you don't lose a single pixel in quality.)

Although the resulting files are LARGE, they are easier to edit with in most NLEs, particularly Sony Vegas... which bogs down fast when you start throwing compressed files at it.

I do all color correction, grading, etc. from these files. Once I render the final piece, I delete the intermediary AVI files and hang on to the (much smaller) original MOV files in case I ever want to use them.
 
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sonnyboo said:
I mentioned Cineform here

CODEC stands for COMPRESSOR/DECOMPRESSOR. It's the software that allows higher quality video from the various file sizes by mathematical formulas of compression. What that means to us is:

Higher Compression = smaller file size, lower quality

Lower Compression = bigger file size, better quality
Click to expand...

FrankLad said:
Not sure if this helps, but my basic workflow for Canon 7D and Canon t2i is to convert the native H.264/MOV files to AVI files compressed using Lagarith (lossless codec - uses something like basic RLE encoding... you don't lose a single pixel in quality.)

Although the resulting files are LARGE, they are easier to edit with in most NLEs, particularly Sony Vegas... which bogs down fast when you start throwing compressed files at it.

I do all color correction, grading, etc. from these files. Once I render the final piece, I delete the intermediary AVI files and hang on to the (much smaller) original MOV files in case I ever want to use them.
Click to expand...

superamazing said:
Lagarith, huh? I'll look into that...

I've been using Apple Intermediate Codec myself since I'm tied to Final Cut Express.
Click to expand...

Thank you all for your responses I now understand 100% what a codec is and especially an intermediary codec.

So Is .avi the best format for a lossless intermediary?

Thanks
 
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I can't recommend Cineform Neoscene highly enough. My only complaint is that it means I need about 5 times as much storage space. But if you need that footage to not be jumpy so you can get a more precise edit, it's a must.
 
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So what would be the best (most high res/uncompressed) intermediary codec for a premiere pro cs5 and rebel t3i workflow? Note: i'm not concerned about disk space as it is only a 2 minute film
 
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