Adobe Premiere Best Export Settings 4K

[Tom Taugher]

Hello,

I have been a long time editor in FCP for many years and now have finally made the switch to Adobe PP as my NLE with
its capabilities and native support for R3D's.
I have watched many of RedUser Unravel Media's Tutorials which are very helpful
but one thing I am still unclear of after watching many tutorials and ready various posts is the best way to export a 4K sequence (on a mac) whilst maintaining the highest quality..

Is DPX is the answer?
Is ProRes 4444?
And why when I am selected in format in "Quicktime" that my only preset options are DV/NTSC.. my sequence, clips, and settings are not even set close to that codec.. find that puzzling too.

I am a Mac User and I am looking for the ideal export, (I am aware that this may be a bit render intensive)

Any feedback on a workflow or a previous post would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks again,

Tom Taugher
Bay Area Director of Photography

[Brad Allen]

Hi Tom,

Glad the tutorials have been a help for you :)

To answer your question - if storage space is not a concern and you are looking to archive the absolute best quality 4k finish - then a DPX sequence is your answer. It will generate some fairly huge files though and depending on the length of your sequence, you may find the storage requirements too extreme.

ProRes 4444 also makes for a fantastic finish and should weigh in at a much smaller size than DPX. Quality is still fantastic.

Regarding your QuickTime presets on exports, it can be a little tricky, but you will find that you need to go down into the video tab and then setup the video codec you are wanting to use and then input your frame size etc.

PS. I plan on doing a tutorial on export settings in Premiere but am waiting until CS6 comes out so that the information isn't redundant :)

[Josh Beadle]

Hey Brad,
Love your vids - looking forward to the Export one!

[Tom Taugher]

Thank you Brad,

That helps alot! And I am sure a lot of us would love to see that tutorial, I was debating about buying into Lynda.com, but you were able to go over all that I was curious about.
One last question if you wouldn't mind, for instance now I am exporting a 2k Sequence. When it comes into filling in the various frame size settings I figure the best way to do this
is click a clip and in the info tab it will give me the dimensions which read (2048x1080).. but when entering that in the frame size window, it auto estimates the height to be (1,365).. and the source sequence above is reading (2048x1152)..

I Guess where I am confused, why would I be getting so many varying readouts for my 2K footage?
Really do appreciate all of your help

--
Tom Taugher

[Clay Glendenning]

I've basically annihilated an entire computer and hard drive with this stuff. I suppose at this point someone saying "here are the 4k and 2k export settings that I used" would be a nice reassurance, but I'm confident in the quality of my exports. I did a massive amount of trial and error, and as we all know render times here aren't a walk in the park even if your machine is nice. I took 3-5 second snippets from clips. I picked some of my favorites, and used 5k down to 2k samples and many differing frame rates, etc. I rendered out with no fx, with lite fx, heavy color grades, AE comps, dynamic linked comps, you get the idea. I rendered out to different finishes, etc.

The goal was to see how things came out, identify any "problem children" causing ridiculous render times, and get an idea of where to encode (PPro vs. AME etc.). With shorter clips for testing you can get an idea pretty fast. Having done this gave me a great deal of understanding what is worth doing, especially when meeting a deadline. If I'm dealing with 5k footage in a RAW workflow, I'll say no thanks to a few of my favorite plugins. The point is I was able to compare a variety of finishes. ProRes is typically fine. DPX if it is going somewhere very important, just don't forget what has already been mentioned about hard drive space.

[Brad Allen]

Thank you Brad,

That helps alot! And I am sure a lot of us would love to see that tutorial, I was debating about buying into Lynda.com, but you were able to go over all that I was curious about.
One last question if you wouldn't mind, for instance now I am exporting a 2k Sequence. When it comes into filling in the various frame size settings I figure the best way to do this
is click a clip and in the info tab it will give me the dimensions which read (2048x1080).. but when entering that in the frame size window, it auto estimates the height to be (1,365).. and the source sequence above is reading (2048x1152)..

I Guess where I am confused, why would I be getting so many varying readouts for my 2K footage?
Really do appreciate all of your help

--
Tom Taugher

Hi Tom,

I wouldn't be too concerned about all of the various options that Premiere is giving you. You should know what you are wanting to spit out in the export so just plug those in :)

2048x1365 is a very odd ratio (1.5:1), so I'm surprised it gave you that, but either way, just use the settings that you know you want. Typically this will be based on the aspect ratio of your sequence.

Would it be helpful for the future tutorial if I made up an Aspect Ratio / Resolution Cheat Sheet?

[Elsie N]

Would it be helpful for the future tutorial if I made up an Aspect Ratio / Resolution Cheat Sheet?

Duhuh!

'-)

By the way, thanks for the Red centric Adobe information.

[Brad Allen]

Duhuh!

'-)

By the way, thanks for the Red centric Adobe information.

No Prob Elsie. I'll start thinking about the best way to organize the cheat sheet for you guys :)

[WesG]

Sooooooo 4k mastering? Is there an accepted 4k master resolution (and aspect ratio)????

Quad hd or 4k 2:1???