<p>Ok there's a few different aspects to this, so here goes. </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>I am trying to create an edit/archive render of my videos captured from Sony A6000. The recording format is: 1080p 50FPS H.264 Codec.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Not sure what you mean here, but I assume you want to prepare your footage for archiving purposes? The best way to archive your footage is to <strong>leave it as it is</strong>. I can't stress this enough. Compressing your footage to save a few gigabytes is a very bad idea. Storage is cheap, you can get an external HDD with 2~3 TB for less than a hundred bucks. Or unlimited cloud storage on Amazon for 70 bucks a year. There's really no reason to compress your original footage, but there are many downsides. If you want to save space at all, you will need to use a lossy codec with a lower bitrate than the original. That means you get artifacts in your video, temporal interpolation (meaning not every frame in your video is saved as a whole, which is quite bad if you want to edit the footage later on and overall reduced quality. You also get chroma subsampling which reduces the available color information, which is bad if you want to color grade your footage later on. So in general, if you want to archive your footage, always archive the original files. </p>

<p>On the other hand, if you have no use for your video files because they are kind of bad and you want to keep them 'just in case', throw them out. You won't look at them again and they are just wasting space. </p>

<p>Anyway, rant over. In case I misunderstood your intentions or you still want to proceed, here's the actual answer. </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>I basically want an uncompressed edit or archive render to save the video without any compression or downscaling or without reducing the FPS as well.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>If you actually use a lossless or visually lossless codec, you will only increase your filesize massively. H.264 (the format of your original footage) is a lossy codec meaning it's heavily compressed. The thing is, while exporting to an uncompressed format will increase your filesize, it won't actually increase the video quality, as the information already lost in the compressed H.264 files can't be magically recovered. So there's really no reason to export to an uncompressed format except for editing purposes (formats with temporal interpolation can be laggy during editing, because only I-frames are saved in full, B-frames are stored as the difference to the last I-frame or preceding frame). </p>

<p>So there's really no reason to convert your footage to either an uncompressed or a heavily compressed version. Anyway …</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Basically, to replicate the issue you just have to create a sequence from clip and export to the sequence settings and the exported file size is double the original size.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Your final video output is dependent on your sequence settings and your export settings. If you created the sequence directly from a footage clip, they will match the clip parameters, so you're good here. </p>

<p>Regarding the export settings, the output file size is mainly dependent on the bitrate (which is literally the amount of information, i.e. bits per second of your video). To change the output size, you will need to change your Target Bitrate (the setting may have a slightly different name if you use formats other than H.264). Depending on your version of Premiere Pro, the steps to change the bitrate while using the Match Sequence Settings option differ. For completion's sake, I will include instructions for both CC and older versions. </p>

<p><strong>Premiere Pro CC</strong></p>

<p>The Match Sequence Option can be toggled on and off for every parameter individually. So you simply need to uncheck the option for the Target and Maximum Bitrate setting, then you can change the bitrate to whatever you want.</p>

<p><strong>Premiere Pro CS6 and older</strong></p>

<p>Unfortunately, with older versions you only get the Match Sequence Settings options in the form of a checkbox at the top that looks most export settings when checked. I'm actually not sure if that includes the bitrate (it's been a while since I had to use non-CC versions of Premiere). I would have said it does not (as claimed by stib in the comments), but since you said that option is locked, try unchecking Match Sequence Settings and see if the bitrate options become available. Unfortunately this will also reset the rest of your settings to your selected Preset, which might not be what you want. So you have to adjust the Export Settings. You will want to match most of those to your original footage parameters, I wouldn't change to much unless you know what you are doing. To find out all technical parameters of your footage, download something like <a href="https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo" rel="nofollow noreferrer">MediaInfo</a> and inspect one of your video files in it. For example, the video you linked was shot at a 1920x1080 resolution, 50 fps, progressive (not interlaced) and with an audio bitrate of 256kbps. Change the export settings accordingly, and then change the bitrate setting to your liking. </p>

<hr>

<p>You will notice that the estimated filesize correlates directly to the chosen bitrate. Your original footage was shot with a variable bitrate, at 26Mbps average. If you want to compress your footage down, use a lower bitrate. If you want to preserve as much quality as possible, use a bitrate at least as high as the original bitrate. But again, I can't recommend either of those things, just keep your footage as it is.</p>

<p>If you export for viewing purposes, experiment with different bitrates to find the lowest one that still yields a quality that is acceptable to you for your specific purpose. <a href="https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/18621/how-to-export-maximum-quality-in-minimum-size/18623#18623">Here's some math</a> that will help you understand the relation between bitrate and resulting filesize. </p>

<hr>

<h3>Update in response to your comments</h3>

<blockquote>
  <p>I don't want to store the actual recording because it's not consumable without editing. I want to do my editing save it as one big file and archive it, later I can use this edited ready to go archive file and can export or reencode it to medium</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The problem is that those are two very different purposes and it's not really practical to do both with only one file.</p>

<p>For your edited output video that you want to show to the world, you'll want to trade off some amount of quality in return for a reduced filesize. Whatever you intend to do with this video, having huge files (like, gigabits of data per minute) is pretty detrimental. You can't send them to people with slow internet connections, you can't transport them on small USB sticks ... and people with slower computers might actually have trouble viewing your video at all, because their hardware can't keep up. So you want to find the lowest possible bitrate that still yields acceptable quality. On a related note:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>If you pause frames of original footage and rendered footage, the original one looks sharper. </p>
</blockquote>

<p>Yeah, but who is gonna do that? You are probably paying closer attention to your video than anyone in your audience will. Of course, you also gotta take into consideration the purpose, target audience and medium in which your video will be displayed (I can only make assumptions here), but for general prosumer-ish/home productions, my point above stands.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>later I can use this edited ready to go archive file and can export or reencode it to medium I want or even do further editing If need be</p>
</blockquote>

<p>That's a very bad idea. The thing is, you're exporting from a compressed format to a compressed format. If you use the exported file to export to another format, your final video will have gone through three export cycles already. It's just gotta hurt your overall video quality. Just keep your original files, your Premiere Pro project file, and everything else that is part of your project in one folder and back it up somewhere safe. If you in 20 years from now decide you need your video in H.269 for some reason, open up the original project and export from that (assuming Adobe's SaaS model hasn't crashed by then, just saying). Of course you can also export a version of your video with a visually uncompressed codec, or as an image sequence or something like that (in fact, depending on your production workflow this might be an intermediate step, but not as the final version). However, that file will be huge, so you won't have really achieved anything in terms of filesize. </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>It produces as acceptable file size but the quality is definitely not the same.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>If you used a bitrate that is close to the bitrate of your original files (~26 Mbit/s) and 2-Pass encoding, I find that hard to believe. I usually use like 6~8 Mbit/s for my exports, and I rarely spot any artifacts in the output at all. I think it's much more likely that you messed up some other setting in your Sequence or Export Settings, and that is what's causing the problems with your output quality. Feel free to open a new topic regarding this problem, this thread is really getting out of hand …</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-30T12:56:49.567Z
Thank you for a descriptive answer. I read the answer from your link "Here's some math" but it didn't show any maths to help me understand the filesize, just the unit of bitrates. I am bit confused, were you trying to mean that?
Starx
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-30T13:00:45.440Z
My goal is to edit the clips and export to the maximum possible quality without with file increase. But if this is only way then I will accept your advice.
Starx
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-30T18:54:00.803Z
@Starx My bad, I linked the wrong answer, meant to link to [this](https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/18621/how-to-export-maximum-quality-in-minimum-size/18623#18623). It's not that important though, it comes down to *estimated file size* = *bitrate* x *duration*. Well, maximum possible quality will result in **massive** files. Maximum quality without filesize increase is a tough one ...
MoritzLost
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-30T18:54:08.767Z
If you want to avoid as much quality loss as possible while still using a lossy codec, the H.264 codec is your best bet. Set your target bitrate to the average bitrate of your original files and make sure to select *VBR 2-Pass* in the render options. This way, the export will take longer, but the resulting quality will be much better and you probably won't see any obvious compression artifacts, meanwhile the exported file will be about as large as one of your original files of the same length.
MoritzLost
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-30T18:59:03.120Z
But if you really want something lossless, use a visually lossless codec such as Apple ProRes. With lossy codecs you always have some amount of quality loss, especially if you go through several encoding cycles ... if you tell us what you need a small yet uncompressed file for, we might be able to offer some better advice
MoritzLost
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-31T09:04:49.307Z
Based on your answer I am doing what you advising in your comment `the H.264 codec is your best bet. Set your target bitrate to the average bitrate of your original files and make sure to select VBR 2-Pass in the render options`. It produces as acceptable file size but the quality is definitely not the same. The playback is much sharper in the original video.
Starx
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-31T09:08:28.940Z
I need the small yet uncompressed file for archiving purposes, nothing more. I don't want to store the actual recording because it's not consumable without editing. I want to do my editing save it as one big file and archive it, later I can use this edited ready to go archive file and can export or reencode it to medium I want or even do further editing If need be.
Starx
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-31T15:05:05.667Z
@Starx what do you mean by 'the playback is much sharper'? And by 'the actual recording is not consumable without editing'?
MoritzLost
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-31T16:08:52.967Z
For example, If you pause frames of original footage and rendered footage, the original one looks sharper. And by consume, I mean `view` or `watch` the recording as a meaningful video.
Starx
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-31T20:42:07.727Z
@Starx I have added some additional paragraphs in my answer regarding your comments
MoritzLost
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-06-01T11:00:55.610Z
Thank you. `For your edited output video that you want to show to the world` I never implied that and have mentioned that I would use the edited ready to go archive file and export or reencode it to medium I want which is what I would show to the world. But your point about `reencoding a encoded video` that made me think. When the source is h264 and the output is its closest h264, will the third render from second render be a big difference from the source?
Starx
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-06-01T18:09:57.017Z
@Starx Yes, since every reencoding cycle introduces new artifacts, which only get worse each time. Like when you see a jpg that has been uploaded to and downloaded from facebook or something like this several times ([needs more jpg!](http://needsmorejpeg.com/)). You can only keep the quality more or less in tact when you use a lossless codec for your intermediary files, though those blow the filesize up considerably, as mentioned above.
MoritzLost
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-25T20:07:22.850Z
2017-05-31T20:38:24.717Z
2017-05-31T20:38:24.717Z
MoritzLost
<p>I agree with MoritzLost's answer, as everything he said was pretty much spot on. I can only assume that you're changing something in the video if you need to recompress it, ie. editing, graphics, something like that. If you're just archiving it, like Moritz said, get an external hard drive. Keep your files around then just delete them 5 years down the road when you realize you're never going to watch them again. </p>

<p>As far as the encoding part goes, I would recommend avoiding CS5's weak h264 encoder. If you have the time/hard disk space, I'd suggest encoding out of Premiere into something lossless (or close to lossless) like ProRes (or even ProRes HQ), or a near-lossless Windows equivalent, then running the resulting file through something like FFmpeg or Handbrake. The quality and filesize is quite a bit above what Adobe was using back in the CS5 days, and you get a bit more control over the encoding settings. Even though CC's Media Encoder is much better nowadays, I still find myself going to ProRes a lot. Then once you're done with your final encode, you can dump the ProRes file as needed. I know it's an extra step, but I've always been pleased with the results.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-30T13:02:36.690Z
Thank you for your additional suggestions. Anyplace I can properly read and learn about ffmpeg and handbrake from begining to good-enough phase?
Starx
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-30T18:46:51.407Z
@Starx You can read the [ffmpeg documentation](http://ffmpeg.org/documentation.html)
MoritzLost
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-26T03:56:25.697Z
2017-05-26T03:56:25.697Z
Daniel Kelley
<p>I am trying to create an edit/archive render of my videos captured from Sony A6000. The recording format is: 1080p 50FPS H.264 Codec.</p>

<p>I am creating a sequence from the clip and exporting the clip to match the sequence settings. But the file size is double.</p>

<p>I basically want an uncompressed edit or archive render to save the video without any compression or downscaling or without reducing the FPS as well.</p>

<p>Here is a sample file if you want to try it out: <a href="https://mega.nz/#!ov52wLqY!anBMgUKWBbnWzRoCGP1bJPkYPsjhJc1Gq5Z8dcvyr3A" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Link</a></p>

<p>Basically, to replicate the issue you just have to create a sequence from clip and export to the sequence settings and the exported file size is double the original size.</p>

<p>Any idea, What I am doing wrong or What should I do to get the correct file size?</p>

<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/xtj4f.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/xtj4f.png" alt="Export Settings"></a></p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-22T18:02:23.073Z
What format/codec are you using? If you are using an umcompressed or lossless codec, it's no surprise that the resulting file will be much bigger than the compressed H.264 file ...
MoritzLost
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-23T09:17:21.903Z
@MoritzLost I am not setting any codes, I am setting it to export matching the sequence settings as I have mentioned in the question. When I set it match the sequence settings, there is no selectable option.
Starx
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-23T09:26:21.250Z
In theory, it should export using the exact settings as the clip.
Starx
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-23T17:17:57.180Z
So you're exporting with H.264? What bitrate are you using? I'm used to CC by now, can't really remember how CS5 used to handle it, but I guess you are right that it locked all the options if you checked Match Sequence Settings (in the CC release you can check that for each property individually). Maybe post some screenshots of your export and sequence settings so we can see what's going on
MoritzLost
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-24T01:21:05.900Z
Match sequence matches the sequences resolution, framerate, PAR, interlacing settings and so on. It does NOT match the bitrate or codec settings.
stib
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-24T03:45:41.683Z
@MoritzLost I have added the screenshot of the export settings.
Starx
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-24T03:45:54.043Z
@stib, What can I do then?
Starx
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-24T07:18:25.437Z
Underneath the video options you'll see the quality slider for the h.264 codec. Drag it down to the point where the file size is small enough. You'll have to do the maths to work out how many MB/s you can afford.
stib
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-05-24T11:19:09.630Z
@stib, It is not enabled.
Starx
<premiere><post-production><cs5>
Exporting on the same sequence settings as the clip doubles the size of the output file
Starx
# Exporting on the same sequence settings as the clip doubles the size of the output file

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-05-22)

I am trying to create an edit/archive render of my videos captured from Sony A6000. The recording format is: 1080p 50FPS H.264 Codec.

I am creating a sequence from the clip and exporting the clip to match the sequence settings. But the file size is double.

I basically want an uncompressed edit or archive render to save the video without any compression or downscaling or without reducing the FPS as well.

Here is a sample file if you want to try it out: [Link](https://mega.nz/#!ov52wLqY!anBMgUKWBbnWzRoCGP1bJPkYPsjhJc1Gq5Z8dcvyr3A)

Basically, to replicate the issue you just have to create a sequence from clip and export to the sequence settings and the exported file size is double the original size.

Any idea, What I am doing wrong or What should I do to get the correct file size?

[![Export Settings](https://i.sstatic.net/xtj4f.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/xtj4f.png)

**Tags:** premiere, post-production, cs5

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: What format/codec are you using? If you are using an umcompressed or lossless codec, it's no surprise that the resulting file will be much bigger than the compressed H.264 file ...  
> **username_0**: @username_1 I am not setting any codes, I am setting it to export matching the sequence settings as I have mentioned in the question. When I set it match the sequence settings, there is no selectable option.  
> **username_0**: In theory, it should export using the exact settings as the clip.  
> **username_1**: So you're exporting with H.264? What bitrate are you using? I'm used to CC by now, can't really remember how CS5 used to handle it, but I guess you are right that it locked all the options if you checked Match Sequence Settings (in the CC release you can check that for each property individually). Maybe post some screenshots of your export and sequence settings so we can see what's going on  
> **username_2**: Match sequence matches the sequences resolution, framerate, PAR, interlacing settings and so on. It does NOT match the bitrate or codec settings.  
> **username_0**: @username_1 I have added the screenshot of the export settings.  
> **username_0**: @username_2, What can I do then?  
> **username_2**: Underneath the video options you'll see the quality slider for the h.264 codec. Drag it down to the point where the file size is small enough. You'll have to do the maths to work out how many MB/s you can afford.  
> **username_0**: @username_2, It is not enabled.  

---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2017-05-25. Score: 2

Ok there's a few different aspects to this, so here goes.

> I am trying to create an edit/archive render of my videos captured from Sony A6000. The recording format is: 1080p 50FPS H.264 Codec.

Not sure what you mean here, but I assume you want to prepare your footage for archiving purposes? The best way to archive your footage is to **leave it as it is**. I can't stress this enough. Compressing your footage to save a few gigabytes is a very bad idea. Storage is cheap, you can get an external HDD with 2~3 TB for less than a hundred bucks. Or unlimited cloud storage on Amazon for 70 bucks a year. There's really no reason to compress your original footage, but there are many downsides. If you want to save space at all, you will need to use a lossy codec with a lower bitrate than the original. That means you get artifacts in your video, temporal interpolation (meaning not every frame in your video is saved as a whole, which is quite bad if you want to edit the footage later on and overall reduced quality. You also get chroma subsampling which reduces the available color information, which is bad if you want to color grade your footage later on. So in general, if you want to archive your footage, always archive the original files.

On the other hand, if you have no use for your video files because they are kind of bad and you want to keep them 'just in case', throw them out. You won't look at them again and they are just wasting space.

Anyway, rant over. In case I misunderstood your intentions or you still want to proceed, here's the actual answer.

> I basically want an uncompressed edit or archive render to save the video without any compression or downscaling or without reducing the FPS as well.

If you actually use a lossless or visually lossless codec, you will only increase your filesize massively. H.264 (the format of your original footage) is a lossy codec meaning it's heavily compressed. The thing is, while exporting to an uncompressed format will increase your filesize, it won't actually increase the video quality, as the information already lost in the compressed H.264 files can't be magically recovered. So there's really no reason to export to an uncompressed format except for editing purposes (formats with temporal interpolation can be laggy during editing, because only I-frames are saved in full, B-frames are stored as the difference to the last I-frame or preceding frame).

So there's really no reason to convert your footage to either an uncompressed or a heavily compressed version. Anyway …

> Basically, to replicate the issue you just have to create a sequence from clip and export to the sequence settings and the exported file size is double the original size.

Your final video output is dependent on your sequence settings and your export settings. If you created the sequence directly from a footage clip, they will match the clip parameters, so you're good here.

Regarding the export settings, the output file size is mainly dependent on the bitrate (which is literally the amount of information, i.e. bits per second of your video). To change the output size, you will need to change your Target Bitrate (the setting may have a slightly different name if you use formats other than H.264). Depending on your version of Premiere Pro, the steps to change the bitrate while using the Match Sequence Settings option differ. For completion's sake, I will include instructions for both CC and older versions.

**Premiere Pro CC**

The Match Sequence Option can be toggled on and off for every parameter individually. So you simply need to uncheck the option for the Target and Maximum Bitrate setting, then you can change the bitrate to whatever you want.

**Premiere Pro CS6 and older**

Unfortunately, with older versions you only get the Match Sequence Settings options in the form of a checkbox at the top that looks most export settings when checked. I'm actually not sure if that includes the bitrate (it's been a while since I had to use non-CC versions of Premiere). I would have said it does not (as claimed by username_2 in the comments), but since you said that option is locked, try unchecking Match Sequence Settings and see if the bitrate options become available. Unfortunately this will also reset the rest of your settings to your selected Preset, which might not be what you want. So you have to adjust the Export Settings. You will want to match most of those to your original footage parameters, I wouldn't change to much unless you know what you are doing. To find out all technical parameters of your footage, download something like [MediaInfo](https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo) and inspect one of your video files in it. For example, the video you linked was shot at a 1920x1080 resolution, 50 fps, progressive (not interlaced) and with an audio bitrate of 256kbps. Change the export settings accordingly, and then change the bitrate setting to your liking.

---

You will notice that the estimated filesize correlates directly to the chosen bitrate. Your original footage was shot with a variable bitrate, at 26Mbps average. If you want to compress your footage down, use a lower bitrate. If you want to preserve as much quality as possible, use a bitrate at least as high as the original bitrate. But again, I can't recommend either of those things, just keep your footage as it is.

If you export for viewing purposes, experiment with different bitrates to find the lowest one that still yields a quality that is acceptable to you for your specific purpose. [Here's some math](https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/18621/how-to-export-maximum-quality-in-minimum-size/18623#18623) that will help you understand the relation between bitrate and resulting filesize.

---

### Update in response to your comments

> I don't want to store the actual recording because it's not consumable without editing. I want to do my editing save it as one big file and archive it, later I can use this edited ready to go archive file and can export or reencode it to medium

The problem is that those are two very different purposes and it's not really practical to do both with only one file.

For your edited output video that you want to show to the world, you'll want to trade off some amount of quality in return for a reduced filesize. Whatever you intend to do with this video, having huge files (like, gigabits of data per minute) is pretty detrimental. You can't send them to people with slow internet connections, you can't transport them on small USB sticks ... and people with slower computers might actually have trouble viewing your video at all, because their hardware can't keep up. So you want to find the lowest possible bitrate that still yields acceptable quality. On a related note:

> If you pause frames of original footage and rendered footage, the original one looks sharper.

Yeah, but who is gonna do that? You are probably paying closer attention to your video than anyone in your audience will. Of course, you also gotta take into consideration the purpose, target audience and medium in which your video will be displayed (I can only make assumptions here), but for general prosumer-ish/home productions, my point above stands.

> later I can use this edited ready to go archive file and can export or reencode it to medium I want or even do further editing If need be

That's a very bad idea. The thing is, you're exporting from a compressed format to a compressed format. If you use the exported file to export to another format, your final video will have gone through three export cycles already. It's just gotta hurt your overall video quality. Just keep your original files, your Premiere Pro project file, and everything else that is part of your project in one folder and back it up somewhere safe. If you in 20 years from now decide you need your video in H.269 for some reason, open up the original project and export from that (assuming Adobe's SaaS model hasn't crashed by then, just saying). Of course you can also export a version of your video with a visually uncompressed codec, or as an image sequence or something like that (in fact, depending on your production workflow this might be an intermediate step, but not as the final version). However, that file will be huge, so you won't have really achieved anything in terms of filesize.

> It produces as acceptable file size but the quality is definitely not the same.

If you used a bitrate that is close to the bitrate of your original files (~26 Mbit/s) and 2-Pass encoding, I find that hard to believe. I usually use like 6~8 Mbit/s for my exports, and I rarely spot any artifacts in the output at all. I think it's much more likely that you messed up some other setting in your Sequence or Export Settings, and that is what's causing the problems with your output quality. Feel free to open a new topic regarding this problem, this thread is really getting out of hand …

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thank you for a descriptive answer. I read the answer from your link "Here's some math" but it didn't show any maths to help me understand the filesize, just the unit of bitrates. I am bit confused, were you trying to mean that?  
> **username_0**: My goal is to edit the clips and export to the maximum possible quality without with file increase. But if this is only way then I will accept your advice.  
> **username_1**: @username_0 My bad, I linked the wrong answer, meant to link to [this](https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/18621/how-to-export-maximum-quality-in-minimum-size/18623#18623). It's not that important though, it comes down to *estimated file size* = *bitrate* x *duration*. Well, maximum possible quality will result in **massive** files. Maximum quality without filesize increase is a tough one ...  
> **username_1**: If you want to avoid as much quality loss as possible while still using a lossy codec, the H.264 codec is your best bet. Set your target bitrate to the average bitrate of your original files and make sure to select *VBR 2-Pass* in the render options. This way, the export will take longer, but the resulting quality will be much better and you probably won't see any obvious compression artifacts, meanwhile the exported file will be about as large as one of your original files of the same length.  
> **username_1**: But if you really want something lossless, use a visually lossless codec such as Apple ProRes. With lossy codecs you always have some amount of quality loss, especially if you go through several encoding cycles ... if you tell us what you need a small yet uncompressed file for, we might be able to offer some better advice  
> **username_0**: Based on your answer I am doing what you advising in your comment `the H.264 codec is your best bet. Set your target bitrate to the average bitrate of your original files and make sure to select VBR 2-Pass in the render options`. It produces as acceptable file size but the quality is definitely not the same. The playback is much sharper in the original video.  
> **username_0**: I need the small yet uncompressed file for archiving purposes, nothing more. I don't want to store the actual recording because it's not consumable without editing. I want to do my editing save it as one big file and archive it, later I can use this edited ready to go archive file and can export or reencode it to medium I want or even do further editing If need be.  
> **username_1**: @username_0 what do you mean by 'the playback is much sharper'? And by 'the actual recording is not consumable without editing'?  
> **username_0**: For example, If you pause frames of original footage and rendered footage, the original one looks sharper. And by consume, I mean `view` or `watch` the recording as a meaningful video.  
> **username_1**: @username_0 I have added some additional paragraphs in my answer regarding your comments  
> **username_0**: Thank you. `For your edited output video that you want to show to the world` I never implied that and have mentioned that I would use the edited ready to go archive file and export or reencode it to medium I want which is what I would show to the world. But your point about `reencoding a encoded video` that made me think. When the source is h264 and the output is its closest h264, will the third render from second render be a big difference from the source?  
> **username_1**: @username_0 Yes, since every reencoding cycle introduces new artifacts, which only get worse each time. Like when you see a jpg that has been uploaded to and downloaded from facebook or something like this several times ([needs more jpg!](http://needsmorejpeg.com/)). You can only keep the quality more or less in tact when you use a lossless codec for your intermediary files, though those blow the filesize up considerably, as mentioned above.  

---

### Answer by username_3 on 2017-05-26. Score: 0

I agree with username_1's answer, as everything he said was pretty much spot on. I can only assume that you're changing something in the video if you need to recompress it, ie. editing, graphics, something like that. If you're just archiving it, like Moritz said, get an external hard drive. Keep your files around then just delete them 5 years down the road when you realize you're never going to watch them again.

As far as the encoding part goes, I would recommend avoiding CS5's weak h264 encoder. If you have the time/hard disk space, I'd suggest encoding out of Premiere into something lossless (or close to lossless) like ProRes (or even ProRes HQ), or a near-lossless Windows equivalent, then running the resulting file through something like FFmpeg or Handbrake. The quality and filesize is quite a bit above what Adobe was using back in the CS5 days, and you get a bit more control over the encoding settings. Even though CC's Media Encoder is much better nowadays, I still find myself going to ProRes a lot. Then once you're done with your final encode, you can dump the ProRes file as needed. I know it's an extra step, but I've always been pleased with the results.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thank you for your additional suggestions. Anyplace I can properly read and learn about ffmpeg and handbrake from begining to good-enough phase?  
> **username_1**: @username_0 You can read the [ffmpeg documentation](http://ffmpeg.org/documentation.html)  

---

