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Help pls - Editing 4k video in Premiere Pro. Decreasing quality to edit but exporting it back to 4k

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I’ve been using Premier Pro to edit my videos. What I have been doing is using a 720p sequence so I can edit my 4k videos (making it fit) and then exporting it back to 4k

Someone brought to my attention that I am doing it wrong but he could not elaborate on it.

I have basic knowledge about editing for videography but could someone help or guide me on how I should be editing my videos.

My computer has a hard time editing at 4k. I have 16gigs of Memory and it is a Intel i7.

I just want to be able to edit them without jumping frames to a point that I can not even make sence of what I am looking at when working at 4k

Thank you for the comments and help.
 
I edit 4k files from the Inspire in native 4k, but I sometimes dial down the preview settings so I can review the sequence in real time. There is a drop-down dialogue below the preview screen, for me 1/2 works fine. Other thing to try is using an SSD drive which can deliver higher throughput. I have one for source files and a second for temporary files - check that Premier Pro is using your fastest drives.

This saves messing with proxy files and the like and retains full quality mastering - though I normally master to 1080p to save space, whilst retaining quality from 4k source.
 
I went from using Windows Movie Maker for my Phantom 2/3 videos to using GoPro Studio (free) for my Inspire 1 videos. I'm running a Core i7 w/8GB RAM. GoPro Studio converts the .mp4s from the Inspire 1 to .avi for editing...which works well...then you can export back to .mp4. Unlike Windows Movie Maker, I don't notice any loss in quality with GoPro studio. Hope this helps.
 
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Thank you. Been reading on this and it looks like I am loosing a lot from my original 4k file by using a 720 sequence. Even when I bring it back to 4 at exporting I have already lost a lot. Well ****!

I am going to try this Ssm drive option.

I just want to be able to preview my video while editing without having to bring it down to a lower quality in my sequence

Thank you for the help.

Still open for suggestions.
 
One other comment, which may help. Premier has to work a lot harder if you apply load of filters and corrections, so I do the editing first, then come back and apply effects if needed. Finally, check that the basic file plays - if you have issues before editing etc, then basic throughput is the problem, and an SSD may help. Also you did not say what your video card is, and whether you have enabled playback via the video processor, or the CPU. Worth playing with.
 
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1/2 works for me and that sounds like my exact setup. 2011 MBP AMD Radeon HD 6750M VRAM 512. Quite impressive that it's able to handle it all. Leaving the footage on the SD with my thunderbolt to USB 3.0 seems to work best.
 
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I’ve been using Premier Pro to edit my videos. What I have been doing is using a 720p sequence so I can edit my 4k videos (making it fit) and then exporting it back to 4k
What this is doing is taking the 720p picture and just making it bigger, the detail has been lost.

If you find that a 720p sequence helps with performance what you can do is edit in that 720p sequence, then create a new 4K one and copy/paste everything from the 720p one into it, then export that. Note that anything that affects size (crops, resizes) will be screwed up and need to be adjusted again, but if you don't have any of those you should be OK.
 
Please be aware that creating proxy files from 4k video is a long process. up to an hr for <10 minutes of 4k vid.
 
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Precisely, if your machine is too slow to edit natively it will take ages to create proxies too. Also proxies aren't particularly convenient to use in Premiere.
 
What this is doing is taking the 720p picture and just making it bigger, the detail has been lost.

If you find that a 720p sequence helps with performance what you can do is edit in that 720p sequence, then create a new 4K one and copy/paste everything from the 720p one into it, then export that. Note that anything that affects size (crops, resizes) will be screwed up and need to be adjusted again, but if you don't have any of those you should be OK.

This is a good idea. Let me give it a shot. Create a new project - copy and paste.

Thanks
 

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