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I need to watch this over again but you shouldn't bring h.264 into your editor. Because we start with a lossy compression algorithm with h264, if you don't want to lose a generation, you have to blow up the h264 to something like ProRes 422 (not HQ) and not 444. That will increase the color space and it will also make it so that whatever you are doing in the editor, once you export for YouTube, Vimeo, or whatever your final deliverable is, you won't lose a generation.
From the bird we get
h.264 ---> ProRes 422 ----> Edt ---> Your settings for exporting out are good from what I saw.
I am sorry if you said this in the video, but if you didn't and you want to have the best quality, if you bring an h.264 video into the editor and then compress it again, you WILL lose a second generation which is exponential and add on top of that the vimeo and youtube compression and you are now at a minimum of three generation losses.
Also, editors do not like h.264 (which by the way is the exact same algorithm as WMV, literally identical). MP4 and MOV are just containers to hold the h.264 file. Other than interoperability, there is no difference.
I was going to make a workflow video for exporting similar to what you did, although I don't think I would take the time to make mine look as good as yours, which is fantastic.
To parallel what we would do if we were using raw footage, it's the same thing. You would take the raw footage which has no compression and possibly use a proxy, depending on your computer power, and what it is your doing. I always ask for my working deliverables to be in Avid Uncompressed 10 bit, and if I can't get that, I ask for Avid DNxHD 175, but these are fantastic codecs (as far as no loss) compared to the very lossy and highly uncompressable h.264 codec so I can't stress enough that in order to get the best image out of this prosumer camera that uses an AVC hardware encoder to spit out h264, you MUST MUST blow it up to ProRes 422 BEFORE going into the editor.
I know I'm sort of repeating myself, but it's a little complicated to the uninitiated and I want people to understand.
Also, why do you want to use a VBR (variable bit rate)? The only reason for using a VBR is to save file size. For people that don't know, the opposite of VBR is CBR (Constant Bit Rate).
What happens with a variable rate is that the video tries to adjust the bit rate by what it sees in the video as a necessary rate for what's going on. So when there is a lot of movement, it will jack up the rate and if it's still, it will lower it. Therefore you have a smaller file size. But if your end game is YouTube or Vimeo, what are you trying to save space for?
Let's say you have a video where it determines on the VBR that X bitrate is the highest at whatever point, if you were to force a CBR at that X rate, you will have a larger file size but you won't have any possibility of the software guessing the proper bitrate on a VBR. So cranking up a high CBR is going to yield you the best results.
If you have REALLY good hardware, you can get a better VBR output but if you have that hardware, you are not going to be dealing with h.264 as a master deliverable. At BEST, it would be a final deliverable. H.264 is really a preview deliverable to be honest.
I hope I didn't confuse as the OP video was very very good and well put together and I agree with almost all of it and again, I shouldn't be commenting as I haven't watched it all the way through yet but I will.
Thanks again! |
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