Exported quality not as good as original

[seanbhalliday]

Hi All,

I have been making some videos and have found that the export quality using VideoStudio Ultimate 2018 is abit fuzzy and not as sharp and crisp as the original file from the video unit (using GoPro Hero5, Canon SL2 and others).

Below are the project properties and the render properties

For an example, you can go to the url below where you will see 2 files:
MVI_0411.MP4 - this is the original file from my Canon SL2 (which is set for 1920x1080 30
renderedfromVS.mp4 - this is the rendered and export file out of Video Studio Ultimate 2018 with those project and render properties and no effects or anything done.

http://seanhalliday.com/corelvideostudio/

Any ideas on how I can get the rendered exported video to be closer to the quality of the original.

Note - I have tried shooting with 60 fps and then exported to 30 fps, but the quality was the same as doing 30 - 30 fps.

Thank you in advance for having a look.

Sean Halliday

[Ken Berry]

Welcome to the forum -- and thank you for providing those sample files.

The reason you are getting lesser quality output files is because the properties used for the output files are lesser quality than the original video. Your original MVI_0411.MP4 has a bitrate of 30141 kbps while the rendered output file has a bitrate of only half that at 15000 kbps. (The audio in the rendered files also uses a slightly lower bitrate.) Now, in video, quality is mostly determined by the bitrate -- the higher the bitrate, the higher the quality. So by going to a significantly lower bitrate, you are significantly lowering the output quality.

Starting a new project, when you insert a video clip like MVI_0411.MP4 into the timeline, you should get a message asking if you want the Project settings to match those of the clip. If you don't get this message, then go to Settings > Preferences > General and tick the box beside "Show message when inserting first video clip into the Timeline".

When you click OK after you receive that message, you can do your editing and then when you're ready to render, you go to Share and right at the top you click the box beside "Same As Project Settings" -- see my attached image below, where the red arrow is pointing. With that selected, you give your output file a name and press START. And you should now get a new, edited video with exactly the same properties -- and importantly, quality -- as the original.

[seanbhalliday]

Thank you Ken for taking the time to look at my settings and the advice.

I tried what you said, this time with a video clip that has text on some items to easily compare the quality.

I used the option to set the project settings to the same as the file, viewed the project properties to confirm it was at that data rate.

If you want to see it, below is the link to the files:

http://seanhalliday.com/corelvideostudio/

MVI_0144.MP4 = file straight from Canon SL2

SameAsProject.mp4 = used the "Same as project settings" from the output option.

You will see that the MVI_0144.MP4 had a data rate of: 60969kps
and the SameAsProject.mp4 ended up with a data rate of: 40175


I think the quality is a closer to the original, but still not as good.

Any other suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated.

Sean Halliday

[Ken Berry]

Yes, there's something strange definitely going on, and I am not sure what is causing it.

First off, your two new samples. For MVI_0144.MP4 I get a data rate of 59821 kbps, rather than the 60696 kbps that you get -- though that difference is not going to affect the quality of the video as seen by the naked eye.

Your SameAsProject.mp4 video is definitely of lesser quality than the original as viewed in the VS preview window, but also in VLC Media Player playing full screen on my 28" 4K monitor. But the really curious thing is that on my computer that clip has a bitrate of 59820 kbps, as opposed to the 40175 that you are seeing. And even more curious -- to me at least! -- is that the frame rate of that clip shows as 59.939 fps as opposed to the 59.94 fps of the original. 59.94 fps is the correct frame rate for a frame based video of this kind. They are commonly called "60p" but in fact that is just a rounded-up figure from the correct 59.94 fps which doesn't exactly roll off the tongue!

When I rendered MVI_0144.MP4 using Same As Project Settings, my new video has a data rate of 58417 kbps -- so a tad lower than the original but again not so low that you could expect the eye to notice any difference in quality. And indeed, in my render I cannot see any quality difference at all between the rendered clip and the original. That difference is much more noticeable in your rendered clip, particularly in the word "Daisy".

But I don't know why this is happening. The mystery deepens further when I look at the detailed info on the clips using the reliable (freeware) program MediaInfo. It tells me MVI_0144.MP4 has an overall data rate of 30500 kbps with an average of 30100 kbps. It also says it uses a constant frame rate of 29.97 fps. Your SameAsProject.mp4 clip, on the other hand, shows an average bitrate of 39700 kbps with a maximum of 59800 kbps i.e. which is at least consistent with the figure showing in my VS, though the overall bitrate shown is more consistent with your 40175 kbps. Interestingly enough, though, my rendered clip shows and average bitrate of 57800 kbps with a maximum of 58400 kbps.

(MediaInfo also advises that your rendered file in fact has a constant bitrate of 59.94 fps, so I don't know why my VS shows that very slightly anomalous 59.939 fps. So that is unlikely to be the cause of any quality difference.)

However, that difference in the bitrates for your and my rendered clips certainly explains why there is a visible difference in quality between the two clips (and of course the original). But why there *is* such a difference in the bitrates shown when both of us used "Same As Project Settings" in the same version of VS is the big mystery.

A preliminary question is where you are getting your clip Properties from: right clicking on the clip inside VS and selecting Properties? Or are you using a program like MediaInfo?

Another question: On your Share page, to the left of the START button, is the box beside 'Enable SmartRender' ticked? If not, tick it and render again.

The only other thing I can think of to try right now would be to start a new project and insert MVI_0144.MP4 in the timeline. Say OK to the msg about project properties matching. But in Share, toggle down from Same As Project Settings to Same As First Clip, and see what happens when you render this time.

EDIT: What is the exact version number of your VS 2018? The fully up to date version I used is 21.3.0.141. You can check via Help > About.

[VideoNoob]

Hello, i have the same Problem with a video from my Garmin Virb Ultra action Cam.
The Quality between the Virb-Video and the Corel Studio Video [·.mp4] is big.
I 've looking for the size of both files and discovered approx. 10 GB down to approx 1GB[Video Studio].
I test a lot of diffrent settings but nothing help or rather change something.
Some Results are crazy: After 3-4 minutes, the video shows only a black Screen.

[Ken Berry]

Welcome to the forum.

We need the exact properties of the Garmin video. Can you please right click on one of the original clips, either in the Video Studio timeline or the VS library window. Please go to Properties and copy them all here, or else take a screen shot of the Properties box and upload it here as an Attachment.

We also need to know what output properties you chose: did you use Same As First Video or Same As Project Settings, or something else?

[VideoNoob]

Hello Ken,

thank you for your fast receive.
Question: Where is my post ? I didnt see it ?

(1) Properties Export
(2,3)Properties of the Original-Video:

[Ken Berry]

I am a little puzzled by this, but thank you for those images.

One of the reasons I am puzzled is that your original video appears to be using PAL as its basis (a multiple of 25) -- which makes sense since I assume you are living in Germany. But your export Custom settings are using the NTSC frame rate of 59.94 frames per second. So first off, I would be interested to know why you used that figure for export.

Second, your original video shows a frame rate of 75 frames per second. Did you choose this deliberately or is that the standard setting of the Garmin? I imagine you realize that when you export using 59.94 frames per second (or even the PAL rate of 50 fps) that the speed of the final video will not look natural. Or was this an effect you were after?

Third, I am also puzzled by the different data rates shown in your images 2 and 3. Image 2 shows a data rate of 4931 kbps while image 3 shows a much higher data rate of over 30,000 kbps. And your export settings use another data rate of 16,000 kbps.

I am not sure what is causing that large difference in video sizes between the original and exported video. But both the high data rate of Image 3 and the overall frame rate of 75 fps will account for much of the large size of the original. Reducing the final data rate to almost half of the original, and reducing the frame rate will also have reduced the overall size of the exported video.

But it is really the Custom settings you used for export which puzzled me most. How did you choose those settings? Why use 59.94 (NTSC) for a PAL video when you could have used 50 or even 25 fps.

When you started the project, did you get a message asking if you wanted to have the Project Properties match those of the video? If so, then when you went to export the project, you could have chosen "Same As Project Settings" or "Same As First Video" for the properties of the exported video. But that would not work if you were wanting to create a specific effect by reducing the frame rate down from the original 75 fps. So perhaps you could also tell us exactly what you were wanting to achieve in your final video.

[weaver]

Just a short comment - I use also super slow motion cameras. They are making up to 150 frames/s, but they and VS are not designed to play back the video with the same speed (150 fr/s). This means the high speed video will be in VS a slow motion (25/50 fr/s) with extra sharp frames. I did not investigated too much (there was no problem with the editing), but it is probably also a question of the metadata in the high speed MP4 video. On one of the cameras I can set the high speed in two modes. I can shot 150 still pictures/s or I can make a high speed video with 150 fr/s. The first method does not work well, as the independent shots cannot be imported easily into VS - every frame will be at least 1 sec (i could not find any setting to reduce the length of the pictures below 1 sec).

[Candive]

I decided to render seanbhalliday's videos in VS 10x using the same properties as the original. Although there is a small drop in bit rate there is no apparent visual difference between the two. In the cucumber clip one can still read "sugar" and on the pancake clip one can make out the words "light" and "dark" on the pankcake maker.

https://1drv.ms/v/s!ApCfURoY0L8VgRMDhOPQ4UFqGiJx

https://1drv.ms/v/s!ApCfURoY0L8VgRK1XtJtTe3cRYag

Ensure you download the files since I checked them online and they are not as clear.

[asik1]

Just a short comment - I use also super slow motion cameras. They are making up to 150 frames/s, but they and VS are not designed to play back the video with the same speed (150 fr/s). This means the high speed video will be in VS a slow motion (25/50 fr/s) with extra sharp frames. I did not investigated too much (there was no problem with the editing), but it is probably also a question of the metadata in the high speed MP4 video. On one of the cameras I can set the high speed in two modes. I can shot 150 still pictures/s or I can make a high speed video with 150 fr/s. The first method does not work well, as the independent shots cannot be imported easily into VS - every frame will be at least 1 sec (i could not find any setting to reduce the length of the pictures below 1 sec).

You need to import them as one sequence not as singles

[lata]

Just a short comment - the independent shots cannot be imported easily into VS - every frame will be at least 1 sec (i could not find any setting to reduce the length of the pictures below 1 sec).

Hi
Right click timeline, “Inset Photo for Timelapse” will allow you to set 1 frame per image
Set your project properties correctly before importing images.

Images already on the timeline, select all, right click for Change Photo Duration, can be set to 1 frame.

[weaver]

Thanks Trevor

I did not know about this option. Fortunatelly my all my high speed cameras offer me a timelaps video, so I was not wasting time with the single shots.
What I experienced yesterday from one famous drone ( their newest product ), the shots have different format (4:3) as the video (16:9) - my already 3 years old drone and all action cameras (except one) offering the shots in same picture ratio as the video.

[VideoNoob]

I am a little puzzled by this, but thank you for those images.

One of the reasons I am puzzled is that your original video appears to be using PAL as its basis (a multiple of 25) -- which makes sense since I assume you are living in Germany.

I´m living in Germany, correct!

But your export Custom settings are using the NTSC frame rate of 59.94 frames per second.

How can you tell ?

So first off, I would be interested to know why you used that figure for export.

I tested various settings including these and I thought this properties comes very close to the original.

Second, your original video shows a frame rate of 75 frames per second.
Did you choose this deliberately or is that the standard setting of the Garmin?

My choosing settings !

I imagine you realize that when you export using 59.94 frames per second (or even the PAL rate of 50 fps) that the speed of the final video will not look natural. Or was this an effect you were after?

I didn´t realize! I'm filming Mountainbike-Tours (Downhill, Enduro). I haven´t any problems with 75 fps!

Third, I am also puzzled by the different data rates shown in your images 2 and 3. Image 2 shows a data rate of 4931 kbps while image 3 shows a much higher data rate of over 30,000 kbps. And your export settings use another data rate of 16,000 kbps.

I test this diffrent settings. It haven´t a special reason!

But it is really the Custom settings you used for export which puzzled me most. How did you choose those settings? Why use 59.94 (NTSC) for a PAL video when you could have used 50 or even 25 fps.

I change it and test diffrent seetings because the quality was so bad.

When you started the project, did you get a message asking if you wanted to have the Project Properties match those of the video? If so, then when you went to export the project, you could have chosen "Same As Project Settings" or "Same As First Video" for the properties of the exported video.

I tested this settings too - but the result was the same!

But that would not work if you were wanting to create a specific effect by reducing the frame rate down from the original 75 fps. So perhaps you could also tell us exactly what you were wanting to achieve in your final video.

I want the same quality as the original video. I put some Effects from Corel Video Studio 21.3.0.141 (64bit Uftimate) into the video, not more.

Some settings more follows :

[VideoNoob]

And a screenshot from the Youtube Video: