PE 2018: 4K Export And Hardware Acceleration Preference

INTRODUCTION

Adobe released a Help document dated October 4, 2017 and titled "Adobe Premiere Elements Does Not Export To 4K With High Bitrate". This document can be found HERE. In this document, Adobe points to the Issue as

Adobe Premiere Elements does not export a file to 4k with high bitrate (100 mbps), if you change the quality slider to high in Export & Share > Devices > Computer.

and gives an issue solution related to the setting of the project's Hardware Acceleration preference. The document's "Applies to:" information = Premiere Elements.

For important background information on the Hardware Acceleration preference of Premiere Elements 13/13.1 and later, please see

PE 13/13.1: Hardware Acceleration Preference (August 23, 2015)
http://atr935.blogspot.com/2015/08/pe-13131-hardware-acceleration.html

ISSUE

The principles for the Issue and Solution given by Adobe in this October 4, 2017 "Premiere Elements" document may or may not exist, but surely there exists flaws in the details given for the Issue.

• In spite of the document's generalized "Applies to: Premiere Elements", it is not clear if the basic issue applies only to Premiere Elements 2018 or to Premiere Elements 13/13.1, 14/14.1, and 15 as well as 2018. See point 3 related to bitrate choice when Quality is set for low, mid, or high.

• For the "export a file to 4K", the Adobe document's Figure for the Export & Share/Devices/Computer/ shows HD 1080 1920 x 1080 (MP4 - H.264) selected and not the 4K Ultra HD 3840 2160 (MP4 - XAVC-S).

• The Premiere Elements 2018 4K Ultra HD 3840 2160 Quality choice offers bitrates of low = 40 Mbps, mid = 60 Mbps, and high = 100 Mbps (classically, Mbps = megabits per second). In contrast*, Premiere Elements 14/14.1, and 15 each has 4K Ultra HD 3840 2160 Quality bitrate values of low = 30 Mbps, mid = 100 Mbps, or high = 200 Mbps.

With the Hardware Acceleration preference selected in Premiere Elements 2018, the 4K Ultra HD 3840 2160 export was explored using the Quality bitrate = high 100 Mbps to determine if this preference setting affects the outcome.

RESULTS

With the Hardware Acceleration preference active, no problems were encountered exporting the Premiere Elements 2018 Timeline full 4K video to a 4K file set for video bitrate = 100 Mbps in Export & Share/Devices/Computer/4K Ultra HD 3840 2160 settings. The successful export to 4K file included

• Export with Duration = 1 minute 21 seconds/File Size = 970 MB with burn time about 28 minutes

• Export with Duration = 2 minutes 42 seconds/File Size = 1.93 GB with burn time about 54 minutes

• Export saved to and found in the designated Documents on the Local C drive, and exported file playable with the QuickTime player v 7.7.9.
  

Details
Premiere Elements 2018 Expert workspace with Edit Menu/Preferences/General with a check mark next to the preference "Use Hardware Acceleration (Intel HD Graphics 2000 and newer)"  

Source video file used in these preliminary tests was a Panasonic GH4 4K video/audio file with the following properties**

Video Codec = avc1 with File Extension = .mp4
Frame Size = 3640 x 2160 pixels
Frame Rate = 29.97 fps with Frame Type = Progressive
File Size = 97.26 MB
Pixel Aspect Ratio = 1.0
Bitrate = 30.0 Mbps
Duration = 27.27 seconds

Audio Format = AAC with Audio Codec ID = 40
Bitrate = 157 Kbps with Maximum Bitrate = 237 Kbps
Sampling Rate = 48.0KHz 

Tests were run with either 3 or 6 of this file on the Premiere Elements 2018 Expert workspace Timeline. Computer was Windows 10 Home 64 bit.

COMMENTARY

My studies did not confirm the Issue reported by Adobe in its document
"Adobe Premiere Elements Does Not Export To 4K With High Bitrate". Consequently, more information from Adobe is needed to understand the conditions that caused Adobe to publish this document.

The overall impression is that this Adobe document used Premiere Elements 2018 for its model. More work needs to be done to determine if this specific Adobe Hardware Acceleration preference issue exists in versions of Premiere Elements earlier than 2018. As an aside, I have seen reports of a Hardware Acceleration preference issue involved in other problems in versions of Premiere Elements earlier than 2018. Refer to Introduction from HERE.


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*In contrast to 2018, 15, and 14/14.1, Premiere Elements 13/13.1 has Publish + Share/Computer/XAVC-S and presets (two of which are MP4 - H.264 3840 x 2160 29.97p 30 Mbps and MP4 - H.264 3840 x 2160 29.97p 200 Mbps). In 13/13.1, this 4K export bitrate can be customized to 100 Mbps or higher in the Advanced/Export Settings dialog of the XAVC-S palette.
**Properties are from MediaInfo program.

Updates on this topic will be reported immediately as they develop and are seen.

ATR

PE2018: ClipMate

INTRODUCTION

ClipMate in conjunction with PremiereElements has been used to copy/paste insert between Premiere Elements projects. Prior blog posts here on the topic give history and specifics for the Premiere Elements versions. Important to refer to

PE: Copy Paste Opportunities Overview (May 6, 2017)
http://atr935.blogspot.com/2017/05/pe-copy-paste-opportunities-overview.html

PE: ClipMate Copy/Paste Between Projects (May 23, 2013)
http://atr935.blogspot.com/2013/05/pe-clipmate-copypaste-between-pe.html 

ISSUE

Does ClipMate 7.5 (latest version) work in conjunction with Premiere Elements 2018 (latest version) to do copy/paste inserts between Premiere Elements 2018 projects?

RESULT

Yes, Premiere Elements 2018 was found to work in conjunction with the tryout ClipMate 7.5 for copy/paste inserts between Premiere Elements 2018 Windows projects. The protocol for the current testing was the same as described in the May 23, 2013 blog post cited above. Key elements for the copy/paste insert between projects included successful paste inserts for transitions and audio as well as correct placement of narration in the Voice track and soundtrack in the Music track of the second project. However, important to remember that work was done using Video track 1/Audio track 1 and Voice and Music tracks arranged a described. Use of other track arrangements have not been explored  in depth in these works.

Correct ClipMate workspace selections continue to be important. And, ClipMate's Edit Menu/Capture Special check offs are just PPro/MZ/Cookie and PProAE/Exchange/TrackItem.

Also, getting the Paste Insert option in the second project's Edit Menu/Paste Insert remains sensitive in detail. What was true in 2013 is similar to what exists now. Refer to following excerpt from 2013 post cited above:

(f) Now the critical details of the paste insert in the second project. With this second Premiere Elements project window and the ClipMate window visible at the same time on the computer monitor screen (cascaded windows), make sure that the ClipMate entry for this copy/paste insert is highlighted, and then, in that second Premiere Elements project, Edit Menu/Paste Insert. Give the procedure a few seconds to complete. Most of the time those straight forward steps do not work. What consistently seems to work is

• make sure correct ClipMate entry is highlighted in the ClipMate interface.
• click once on a blank area in the second project's Video 1 track
• then Edit Menu/Paste Insert, giving Edit Menu opening, the Paste Insert availability, and Paste Insert action a few seconds to be active.

COMMENTARY 

It was found that, for all intents and purposes, Premiere Elements 2018 and 15 work the same in the Premiere Elements/ClipMate copy/paste insert feature.

Also of interest, I may revisit this topic to explore what happens to blocks of paste insert content in the second project when tracks other than 1 are copied in first project - quick exploration is that Edit Menu's copy/paste insert option works for the physical copy paste but that the paste inserted content may not place where intended automatically.

Also, remember that ClipMate is a Windows only program.

Work in progress.

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ATR