Grainy footage only in software

[Kirstyg]

Hi all

I'm hoping that you guys can point out where I'm going wrong with my videos - I've copied from the SD card onto my laptop and can playback the videos no problem in the default Windows video player etc.

When I import a video into editing software, however, it seems to be really grainy. I thought it was just the preview settings, but tweaked those and also tried rendering the video to see if it came out okay, but no luck.

I've tried this both in CyberLink PowerDirector 15 and in DaVinci Resolve and I experience the same issue in both.

Is it the way that I'm importing them in or the project settings or something?

The videos are all 4k by the way.

Thanks in advance!

 

[brett8883]

Hi all

I'm hoping that you guys can point out where I'm going wrong with my videos - I've copied from the SD card onto my laptop and can playback the videos no problem in the default Windows video player etc.

When I import a video into editing software, however, it seems to be really grainy. I thought it was just the preview settings, but tweaked those and also tried rendering the video to see if it came out okay, but no luck.

I've tried this both in CyberLink PowerDirector 15 and in DaVinci Resolve and I experience the same issue in both.

Is it the way that I'm importing them in or the project settings or something?

The videos are all 4k by the way.

Thanks in advance!

With 4K you run into the limitations of a computer processor quickly. You might be able to view the video in a video player easily but as soon as you put any kind of adjustment on the footage the way the playback works will be processor intensive. This isn’t the footage itself just the preview.

Time to ask yourself if you really need to have a 4K finished product. Very few screens out there today have 4K resolution and doing all this work with 4K is pointless unless you have a 4K screen to view them on. That’s not to say you won’t benefit from filming in 4K but just apply a basic LUT adjustment to the footage and then render out to 1080p. Will make life much easier.

If you still want a 4K output the best way to overcome this is to make proxy files to work with. Proxy files are copies of the original footage but in a lower resolution to make playback and thus editing easier to work with. One you have edited the proxy files the program will apply the adjustments you’ve made on the proxy files to the original 4K footage instead when rendering. Best of both worlds.

 

[4wd]

I suspect you aren't working with the full size files or the export settings are not correct.
There will likely be a youtube 4K preset for export, try a short clip using that.
The file sizes will give you a clue.
A couple of minutes after render at 4K for youtube ought to be about 1GB when exported.

 

[Kirstyg]

Awesome! Thank you both so much for the advice!