Bit Rates...not seeing difference

[goddi]

Greetings,

I'm working on a show with some video clips that came from my Insta360 X3 camera. The clips are exported from their software at 3840x2160.

I've ran the original clip through the PTE converter, mainly to just reduce the size of the clips, at different aspect ratios.

The original clip, which is 3840x2160, 368 MBs, has a bit rate of 102 Mb/s

Then, converted it at 3840x2160, 52.3 MB, has a bit rate of 14.4 Mb/s.

Then, converted it at 1920x1080, 14.5 MB, has a bit rate of 3.879 kb/s.

The big difference is the bit rates. However, when I view them in PTE preview, I don't 'see' a difference between the clips at the different bit rates or aspect ratios. Should I see a difference? I have lots of clips do I want to reduce the size of the files but not sure what I am missing if I convert all of them to 1920x1080 with the lower bit rate. I publish the shows to MP4s.

Gary

[jkb]

I honestly wouldn't worry about it.
Just drop the original videos directly into PTE & then Publish as an MP4 at the default values set by PTE.

It's what I do & never have any problems with quality.
I never even look at the bitrate.

Jill

 

[goddi]

Greetings,

I'll have to do some test to see what the difference is. But, when you say 'Publish as MP4 at the default values set by PTE', are you referring to '1920x1080 at 60 fps'? Not the 'default' but seems what Igor has recommended.

But when the original size of a clip is 368 MBs and I can reduce it down to 14.5 MBs, and not see a difference in quality, I don't mind going through that process. Especially when I've got tons of video clips.

Gary

[jkb]

If you are going to Publish as an MP4 then it doesn't matter what size your original clips are.

Unless your computer is struggling to handle them, then reducing the size makes no difference to the Project.

Jill

[goddi]

Greetings,

Yep...with these large video files, my hard drives are filling up. So, if you don't see any difference in the files, I'll be converting them to 1920x1080, 60 fps, and dumping or moving the exported Insta360 MP4 files (which can easily be recreated). Just weird to go from 3840x2160 (102 Mbs/s) to 1920x1080 (3.879 kb/s) and not see a difference.

Gary

[digartal]

20 minutes ago, goddi said:

Greetings,

Yep...with these large video files, my hard drives are filling up. So, if you don't see any difference in the files, I'll be converting them to 1920x1080, 60 fps, and dumping or moving the exported Insta360 MP4 files (which can easily be recreated). Just weird to go from 3840x2160 (102 Mbs/s) to 1920x1080 (3.879 kb/s) and not see a difference.

Gary

Hi Gary

The problem will be your monitor or video card. It is probably at your maximum on 1920 x 1080 and cannot display 4K (3840 x 2160). I know my monitors cannot and I have a high quality video cards (hundreds not thousands in cost) lots of RAM, diskspace etc. I use 4 monitors so the monitors are the weakest point. The bottle neck for all technology is the weakest point and everything is slowed to the weakest size/quality.

Cheers

Mark

[jkb]

28 minutes ago, digartal said:

The problem will be your monitor or video card

Agree, I was just about to ask Gary what device he was viewing on.

I usually find that 4k videos or very large sized jpgs look over sharpened on my 1920x1080 monitor

Jill

[goddi]

Greetings Mark Nd Jill,

Not sure why you suggest I have a problem with my monitor or video card. I don't have any problem viewing any of the video files. I am only concerned with the large video files filling up my harddrive. My monitor's display resolution is 3840x2160, Dell P2715Q. All the video play just fine. I don't see any oversharpening or difference in viewing the same clip as 3840x2160 or 1920x1080, regardless of the bit rate. If I don't see a difference in the quality between these aspect ratios or bit rates, I'll keep to the smaller sized files.

Gary

[jkb]

57 minutes ago, goddi said:

Not sure why you suggest I have a problem with my monitor or video card

We weren't suggesting that you have a problem, just that it may explain why you don't see any difference.

You have 4K monitor, so 4k files wouldn't look oversharpened.

If I view a 4k file on my HD (1920x1080) monitor then they do look oversharpened

Jill

[goddi]

Greetings,

Ok, that is interesting. But since Mark used the word 'problem', I was not sure what he was getting at. I guess that my monitor and video card are good enough to make everything look good! That's nice. I was really just concerned about the file settings and ultimate viewing quality and file sizes.

Thanks,

Gary

[Igor]

Hi Gary,

All smartphones and cameras use hardware video encoders which should work in real time, and this applies certain limitations. To reach the best visual quality (less artefacts) these encoders set the highest bitrate (about 100 MBit for 4K videos). And this high bitrate is used for any kind of scenes - with many fine details (trees), or for scenes with less details (sky, snow, walls, etc).

Software video encoders have more time for more effective use of bitrate.

PTE AV Studio uses the newest smart mode of a video encoder which dynamically changes a bitrate according details in a video scene for each frame. It works like a JPEG compression in Photoshop where you set say "10" of compression quality and resulting JPEG file has different file size according pixel size and fine details in a picture.

In other words, "High quality" preset (100%) in PTE gives a similar result as using "10" in Photoshop for saving JPEG.

Try to create a new simple project with blank images and one text caption on each picture. No transitions (quality transition) for each slide. Encode a MP4 video in PTE with 1920 x 1080, High quality, 60p. I guess that you'll get a MP4 video file about 300-500 KB (less than 1 MB).
Then replace blank images with JPEG pictures of landscapes/flows/trees and the resulting MP4 video will be about 10-20 MB. Add Dissolve transitions or any Pan/Zoom animations and MP4 file will be 30-50 MB. Then add videos, and file size will be 50-150 MB.

 

[goddi]

Greetings Igor and others,

In the end, I want to see if I can actually see any difference using different settings when I Publish an MP4 show.

I Published the same show 3 times at 60p at different other settings.

I really could not tell the difference between the highest 'HQ 3840x2169 at 34 Mb/s' compared with lowest 'LQ 1920x1080 at 4.485 kb/s'.

And, since they are viewed on my Facebook or my YouTube channel, where I think they would even get reduced to the same resolution, I don't see any advantage of the additional time and file size needed to Publish at the highest settings.

Just what I see but I can be persuaded to do it differently if I could see a difference.

Thanks,

Gary

 

[digartal]

On 5/18/2024 at 11:57 AM, goddi said:

Greetings,

Ok, that is interesting. But since Mark used the word 'problem', I was not sure what he was getting at. I guess that my monitor and video card are good enough to make everything look good! That's nice. I was really just concerned about the file settings and ultimate viewing quality and file sizes.

Thanks,

Gary

Perhaps "issue" or "difficulty" or "obstacle" may have been better - problem, was just a word and a solution offerred based on my experience. 

[goddi]

Greetings Mark,

Yes, they could have been an issue if the shows would not actually play. But that was not the case. I was only interested in the final file size and quality results from the Publish process. But I don't see any difference between the 'high' quality and the 'low' quality setting's results. Maybe if I were to play them on big screen, it would make a difference. I only upload my shows to my Facebook or YouTube channel. Good enough for me.

Thanks... Gary