HD video exporting

[Braden Russell]

Anybody have any great secrets for exporting HD video from a NLE with a minimum of quality loss?
I know that some people do this by editing and mastering in Adobe After Affects. I use Pinnacle Studio Ultimate 12.1, although I hope to upgrade pretty soon.
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[chadstembridge]

I recommend exporting a full quality master from the NLE, then compressing from there if you want to take it to the web or DVD. I generally don't do compressed exports from a NLE; I've found it to be simpler and faster to export a master and compress it with something like MPEG Streamclip, which also happens to be free.

Good settings for a full quality master: export to a .MOV using the h.264 codec, unrestricted data rate, full resolution, stereo AAC audio at 48 kHz and 256 kbps, deinterlaced. The biggest thing is the data rate — you could export at 1920x1080, but if you set your data rate too low, it'll kill the video quality. HD is nice because it's so high resolution, but there's nothing magic about it — if it's not handled correctly, it's just a way to amplify mistakes.

Once you have the full quality exported, you can then compress it for whatever purpose you need — for web, it's usually best to compress to mp4 (h.264, data rate limited to 5600 kbps at the very least, full resolution, stereo AAC or mp3 audio at 44.1 kHz and 128 kbps, deinterlaced).

Video for DVD must be compressed to mpeg2, best done in programs such as Apple's Compressor (I'm not sure what Adobe's equivalent is — is it Media Encoder?).
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[Braden Russell]

Thanks! I think this answers my question.
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WARNING: This statement has been made by an unsocialized homeschooler. Regard this information at your own risk.