Premiere - Large Export file and no idea why?

Hey All,

When it comes to Premiere I only really know the basics. For my paid gig I'm a real estate photographer and also do video walk throughs (using my 6D) which is simple to put together in Premiere. Keeping all the native settings, for a ~5 minute, 24fps video with a target bitrate of 18 my exported file is around the 650mb mark.

I recently got myself a GoPro and shot some video this afternoon with it. I imported it into Premiere and applied a time remapping of 3000% so I was essentially turning it into a time lapse and turning nearly 2 hours of footage into a bit over 3 minutes of footage. No other special effects or anything.

I go to export the video and the file size is nearly 6 gig with a target bitrate of 10. I was expecting a slightly larger file size due to the higher fps but not that much! Even when I change the resolution and the fps settings it's still a massive file size.

I know the time remapping has to have something to do with it but no idea how or what or how to fix it.

Essentially what I would love to know how to do is why this is happening and how to export the video so it's a file size of under a gig but while still retaining the resolution.

Anyone have any idea of what's going on?

TIA

Premiere does not always make the right decision when you use automatic settings. I can’t really say exactly what it’s selecting; probably something relatively uncompressed, settings that might be suitable for taking you clip into another program for graphics work with no loss.

I’d recommend you try these two settings, and see if you like the results:

Format: h.264
Preset: Match Source - High Bitrate

Format: h.264
Preset: Match Source - Medium Bitrate

Look closely at the “Format” selection. There will be several h.264 choices - you want the choice that is just “h.264”, not anything like Quicktime-h.264 (mac).

Thanks SailingAway. Unfortunately when I select either of those settings I still have a very large export file - medium bitrate 1682mb

What’s the resolution of your Gopro footage? Bear in mind that 4k footage has 4x the pixels of 1080p... and that, for the same quality, you might expect files to be four times as big!

I don’t think this is about the time remapping. The settings that Premiere applies are based on your sequence settings, not on media properties.

Are you sure that there is no little scrap of media 10 minutes down on the sequence timeline? That can play havoc with both duration *and* file size.

There are advanced compression methods that you can apply outside of Premiere... but I’m guessing you’d like to stay in Premiere if possible.

Is there a particular concern about file size? Usually, we’re trying to balance bitrate and quality when trying to reduce file size.

What happens if you drop a few seconds or a timelapse from your Gopro onto one of your 6D timelines?

Thanks again for your detailed response, SailAway

I've been caught out by this gremlin before but your question did prompt me to check the duration of the video - 1 hour and 32 mins.... No tiny little clip at that mark so no idea why Premiere is deeming why my video should be that long. I marked the sequence in and out and brought up the export screen and now have a much more reasonable file size of ~500mb at a bitrate of 18 which I am now exporting.

Probably PEBKAC but issue solved at least.

Thanks again for your help!

-Pleiades- wrote in post #18782753
Probably PEBKAC but issue solved . . .

Knowing the impressive potentials of PEBKAC does tend to work in so many life situations it should be taught at all levels throughout the world's educational systems.