Video quality issues

[xKyo]

I'm currently working on my first AMV and am using Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 and Adobe After Effects CC 2015. For some reason, whenever I import my footage to Premiere, the quality significantly decreases. The sound and framerate seem to be fine though. I didn't actually realize this because I was editing using a small preview window, but when I finished editing the first six seconds, which I wanted to save and render so I can add some effects using After Effects (dynamic linking unfortunately doesn't seem to work between those two versions so I have to render it manually), I did preview the rendered video file and then realized the significant quality decrease. I tried rendering it in all kinds of formats but nothing helped, then I realized the full screen preview window of Premiere had the same quality. Does anyone know the cause of this, and what I can do about it, and if possible without having to redo everything I've done so far?

Another issue I'm having (which might not be related to the one above) is that whenever I preview my video file, whether I do it in Premiere or on any other video player, sometimes the video starts lagging, while other times it plays completely fluently. Is there anything I can do about that?

[l33tmeatwad]

What type of files are you working with (what video codec)? What format and codec are you using when exporting? Windows or OSX?

[xKyo]

Well, I'm kinda new to this so I don't know what you mean with codec and where to find it, so I hope these two screenshots below give you the information you need. If not, I'll try to find whatever you need.

Spoiler :

As for the format, I've tried pretty much every format that I thought would be worth trying. My most recent try (which I did just an hour ago) was H.264, and I tried toying around with the preset option (I don't know what exactly it does), which used to be at "Custom" for all my previous attempts:

Excuse me for the german language in this one, I hope you still understand the meaning of everything. I'm using a german laptop so that's why:

[l33tmeatwad]

Did you convert your footage before or are those the original files? As for your project setup, the Sequence should be set to 23.976 or 24fps, not 25fps as that will make the footage appear choppy or sometimes the editing software will blend frames together. Additionally, what kind of "lower quality" are you talking about, what specifically do you see visually that is wrong with the video quality? Also, what is your computer hardware specs? That could be affecting the playback and causing the "lagging".

[xKyo]

Yes. They used to be mkv files and I converted them to mp4 files since Premiere can't import mkv files. Do you know how I change the framerate of the sequence? When I go to properties or sequence settings, it does show me that it's indeed set to 25 fps, but it doesn't let me change it. In sequence settings there is however the option to change the display format from 25fps timecode to feet+frames 16mm or 35mm, or frames. The resolution seems to be lower. It doesn't really look as "sharp" as the original files.

[l33tmeatwad]

Yes. They used to be mkv files and I converted them to mp4 files since Premiere can't import mkv files. Do you know how I change the framerate of the sequence? When I go to properties or sequence settings, it does show me that it's indeed set to 25 fps, but it doesn't let me change it. In sequence settings there is however the option to change the display format from 25fps timecode to feet+frames 16mm or 35mm, or frames. The resolution seems to be lower. It doesn't really look as "sharp" as the original files.

First off, let's start with the files, did you recompress them or simply recontainer the video files from MKV to MP4? Recomrpessing to a lossy format in MP4 will result in the footage not looking as sharp. As for the settings of the sequence, it's usually easier to create a new sequence with the correct settings and simply copy/paste the clips from your current one to the new one.

[xKyo]

Oh wow, you actually found out the cause for the quality drop! It doesn't have anything to do with the convertion, however when I created a new sequence, I saw that Editing Mode is set to DVD by default, and simply changing that to 1080p solved the issue. It looks just as good as it should be, wow. Damn, thank you so much, that was really helpful!