I haven’t found a simple way to just export my edit as the original file format and quality. Is there a way to just the same exact bit rate, quality as the original? There seems to be endless exporting options but i just want it to be the same size as well.
It’s important that you choose the same video mode as your original video is. You can set video mode to automatic and Shotcut will take the mode from the first used video. This helps to get the same resolution and framerate.
About the export settings: I would suggest to use one of the presets, e.g. one with the same codec as your original video. Personally I do it like that and just change the quality setting a bit.
Why do you want the exact same format, bitrate, and quality? Because you believe it is the best choice? That is very unlikely. If you want a similar format and good quality that is understandable, but get over your need to have something the same. Editing requires re-encoding, which in most cases means some slight drop in quality at the very least due to the ubiquity of lossy compression. Your export decision should be more chosen about what you intend to do with the output and then working within the constraints of compatibility, storage, and upload time if uploading. If all that is too complicated for you, then just use the defaults and click Export File.
Problem is, the default is much worse quality. I just want something similar in size and quality. There so many different options, its really confusing. I’ve tried to match the export bitrate with the original and select 100% codec quality but it still exports something smaller and with lesser quality.
Also, i am going to be uploading these videos to facebook and youtube. So is there a better format for retaining quality for those?
In that case, go to Codec tab and increase quality a little like +10% and in Other change preset=faster to preset=medium. The default export settings work for YouTube. If you have a lot of storage and upload bandwidth and willing to wait for a long upload, then for great quality you can try the ProRes preset. If you are still having a quality issue then quite likely your project Video Mode does not well match the source footage attributes. Click Master on the Timeline and then view Properties. Does that match your main clips well? Click one of those clips and view its Properties to compare.
Piggy-backing on this subject because I’m finding the concept of transcoding to an editing format difficult.
Why does a person need to, say transcode to Prores for editing. Why not keep the project in the original acquisition format and render out at the delivery format? I don’t understand how this works.
I’ve done quite a bit of research and dont understand how adding the editing format helps preserve quality. I mean I understand how it doesn’t lose quality but the question is more, why not render from the original format to the delivery format…
Thanks in advance for any replies
What I do is to import my H.264 camcorder footage which is an .mp4 file and do all of my editing in Shotcut: cuts, dissolves, titles, fades, etc. From there I export to HuffYUV if I want to keep it pristine. Here is a HuffYUV file which has been uploaded to YouTube.
The file size will be large and it will be a long upload. It works OK for short clips. I do this knowing that YouTube resamples all videos no matter what, so it saves a generation of lossy compression. So instead of
Camera H.264 -> H.264 lossy export -> YouTube lossy resample
I have
Camera H.264 -> Lossless HuffYUV export -> YouTube lossy resample
So I save one generation of lossy compression.
Or there is “lossless” H.264 or several other flavors of H.264.
I don’t know why this would give anyone trouble.
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Just for clarification, Shotcut does not support RAW format.
Export settings.
I stated so in my post:
“import my H.264 camcorder footage”
Unedited footage is often referred to as “raw”. Sorry for any ambigutiy.
Lossless > HuffYUV is certainly an option as well. I suggested ProRes because it does more compression than lossless with only slight loss. It is sometimes called near-lossless or visually lossless. DNxHD is similar, but it has restrictions on resolutions such that it might introduce some image quality degradation by scaling if your project does not match.
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You don’t have to, I work directly from the MP4 files my camera records(which are standard h264 as far as I can tell) however some cameras(like some panasonics we have at work) record in AVCHD which has performance issues(only single threaded ffmpeg due to design) and we’re far better off trans coding that to something else first and then editing it. Other formats can have technical reasons but these are camera/format specific and not a general requirement.
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Any reason why you couldn’t transcode from h.264 to Huff right off the bat, edit the Huff, export it as Huff and upload that, other than file size and upload time? Maybe for short clips?
What I suggested was to transcode to Huff after editing the .mp4.
It does not improve quality other than to improve the accuracy of cuts and A/V sync when the tool is challenged by a format This step is also intended to improve the user experience of editing by making seeking faster.
You can certainly do that, and HuffYUV makes seeking and editing snappy.
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