Optimal settings in VSE.

So I’ve edited my first video in the VSE. Pretty good. I’m struggling with the settings though. I can either get a very small file video out that looks terrible or a 25GB video that… isn’t going to work for obvious reasons. :smiley:

So I’m wondering, what settings should I crank and what settings should I drop? It’s a 4K video. Also, how big should I aim to have a 4K video for on youtube?

I have a 4770K, 16GB of 2500mhz ram and a GTX 770 but I feel the vse is struggling showing me the footage in real time. Is there anything in the user preferences that can help? To make sure I am using the most of my RAM in particular? And maybe the processor? The videos render reaaaaally slowly.

Thanks in advance guys.

Render a high quality frame sequence out first but don’t use the VSE. Then import them and render from the VSE as a movie. This saves poor compression and rerendering each time. The VSE is setup to use fairly low bit rates even when you crank them up in the settings. High quality codec such as dnxhd will allow a high data rate. Not sure what to expect for 4k tho?

This thing is already edited and ready to be exported. I will keep that in mind for the future, but right now I just need to know what to turn up in the properties panel, what to turn down, etc.

Check this out its very comprehensive


and
https://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?295840-Render-Codecs-and-bitrates-for-dummies

Thanks. Tried following the advice, still getting really bad video out of it; it’s just taking much much longer to render out now.

VSE really is the poorest component of Blender IMO.

I tried increasing the rendering time with this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJGLKHhf1EI
but I don’t seem to have a Shading drop-down, has it been moved?

I mean I’m rendering on an overclocked 770. I know it’s 4K, but I think a five minute video is taking almost an hour? Definitely messing up my settings somewhere…

Just render out your high quality 25GB file and then use an external tool to convert that output to a deliverable format. Give MPEG Stream Clip a try. Or Quicktime Pro if you have that. That is the way video editors work, we always have two files. One for editing and one for playback.