What Are the Best Premiere Pro Export Settings for DJI?
Many DJI users reported in DJI Forum that their 4K DJI videos exported from Premiere Pro were not as good as the source video or they spent too much time waiting for video rendering. The reason lies in export settings. Magnificent videos shot by DJI Mavic Pro, Phantom 4 or Osmo Pocket will be degraded in quality by any inappropriate settings in Premiere Pro.
To prevent such cases, you need to be clear about what videos your DJI can record. Here is a list of DJI video formats and related Res, FPS, and bitrate.
Besides the source video, the best Premiere Pro export settings for DJI Mavic Pro, Phantom 4, and Osmo Pocket videos change under various circumstances. It depends on the final destination, you want to keep the original quality after editing or upload it to a certain media platform, YouTube, Vimeo, or Instagram.
How to Export the Same Quality as Original from Premiere Pro?
If you are sure that you want the original quality when exporting from Premiere Pro, just keep the parameters the same as the source video. Even though Phantom 4 can shoot video in HEVC, in Premiere Pro, H.264 is always the most recommended output video codec that keeps high speed and small file size at the same time. Other parameters like resolution, bitrate, and frame rate can remain the original.
This is a simple method that doesn’t require much professional knowledge. Follow our instructions to set it in Premiere Pro easily.
Step 1: Go to File > Export > Media.
Step 2: Choose H.264 in Format.
Step 3: Select Match Source — High Bitrate in Preset.
Step 4: Export to get a video of the original quality.
One more thing, enable Render at Maximum Depth to keep videos from video degrading better when exporting.
How to Export in the Best DJI Video Format for YouTube, Instagram, and Vimeo?
After editing 4K video in Premiere Pro, if you want to share your DJI videos on YouTube, Vimeo or Instagram, you need to know what kind of videos they support. Of course, they vary from each other in video codecs, file size, resolution, bitrate, frame rate. Moreover, these media platforms compress videos when uploading, which indicates that the source video will be compressed twice in the whole process, first when it was exported from Premiere Pro, and second when uploaded online.
Referring to their uploading requirements, we’ve made an export recommendation here, and you can follow it in Premiere Pro export settings to output the best DJI videos for YouTube, Instagram, and Vimeo:
The Best Export Settings for DJI Videos on YouTube
The maximum file size is 128GB and the maximum video length is 12 hrs after account verification, so you don’t need to worry much about your file size when exporting. But watch your render time. If the file is too large, it may take hours to export. Making balance among video size, quality, and render time, below are export settings for you to get the best of DJI video format.
- Video Format: H.264
- Video Resolution: 3840 x 2160
- Aspect: Square pixels (1.0)
- Frame Rate: 29.97fps / 30fps NTSC Progressive
- Profile: High, Level 5.1
- Bitrate: VBR 2 Pass | Target Bitrate 30 Mbps, Maximum 50 Mbps
- Audio Format: AAC
- Sample Rate: 48,000 Hz
- Channels: Stereo
- Bitrate: 320 Kbps
- Max Bit Depth & Render Quality: Enabled
- Render at Maximum Depth: Enabled
The Best Export Settings for DJI Videos on Instagram
Instagram has more restrictions on videos. The file size of a DJI video must be smaller than 15MB within 60 seconds. You have to keep the quality as high as possible and strictly follow its rule on video size and length.
- Video Format: H.264
- Video Resolution: 1280 x 720
- Aspect: Square pixels (1.0)
- Frame Rate: 29.97fps / 30fps NTSC Progressive
- Profile: MAIN, Level 3.2
- Bitrate: VBR 2 Pass | Target Bitrate 5 Mbps, Maximum 7 Mbps
- Audio Format: AAC
- Sample Rate: 48,000 Hz
- Channels: Mono
- Bitrate: 128 Kbps
- Max Bit Depth & Render Quality: Enabled
- Render at Maximum Depth: Enabled
The Best Export Settings for DJI Videos on Vimeo
Compared with YouTube, Vimeo even supports more video codecs like HEVC, ProRes 422, but take Premiere Pro renderer and compatibility into consideration, we still make it universal settings for DJI videos.
- Video Format: H.264
- Video Resolution: 4096 × 2160
- Aspect: Square pixels (1.0)
- Frame Rate: Maintain the video’s native frame rate
- Profile: High, Level 5.1
- Bitrate: VBR 2 Pass | Target Bitrate 30 Mbps, Maximum 50 Mbps
- Audio Format: AAC
- Sample Rate: 48,000 Hz
- Channels: Stereo
- Bitrate: 320 Kbps
- Max Bit Depth & Render Quality: Enabled
- Render at Maximum Depth: Enabled
All of these are for your reference in general. If your video shot by DJI is pretty large, you’d better lower these parameters appropriately to reduce render time and file size. You can see the estimated file size while you are changing the target bitrate.
If you need a one-click solution to export the best DJI video after editing:
Adobe Premiere Pro export DJI videos of good quality, but you will fail to render without high-end hardware, and it is not compatible with many video formats and codecs, e.g. can’t import HEVC videos shot by DJI Phantom 4.
VideoProc is a lightweight software that supports all 4K videos recorded by DJI Mavic Pro, Phantom 4, and Osmo Pocket, and export videos without quality loss.
Follow the steps below to export DJI Mavic Pro, Phantom 4, and Osmo Pocket DJI video format without damaging the original quality
Step 1. Open VideoProc, click the Video button, and then import target DJI file into this program by clicking the +Video button.
Step 2. Click the Video tab or Target Format at the bottom to choose the desired format, then start to edit the video in the edit bar. Optionally, you can click the gear icon to adjust frame rate, resolution, bitrate, and audio codec options (if your video is recorded with audio by Osmo Pocket).
Step 3. Hit RUN and it will start exporting the best video after editing.
How to Export Settings Affect Video Quality?
Among export settings, there are several parameters that affect video quality crucially. Codec, bitrate, and frame rate. Next, we will explain what they are and how they work during video encoding in case you want to adjust export settings on your own.
Resolution refers to how much detailed information is stored in a video. The higher the resolution, the more details are saved, therefore the file is bigger. The highest resolution of DJI Mavic Pro, Phantom 4, and Osmo Pocket is 4K (4096 x 2160). You should think twice to keep the original resolution or not because it makes a pretty large file, what’s more, the highest resolution in Instagram is 1080p.
Codecs indicate the way of how video data compressed. Common video codecs include H.264, HEVC/H.265, MPEG 4, etc. But H.264 is the only one that is supported by YouTube, Instagram, and Vimeo. It balances high visual quality with efficient file size at the same time.
Frame rate is the frequency at which consecutive frames of videos appear, expressed in frames per second (fps). High frame rates produce a smooth representation of motion in a video. 24fps, 30fps, and 60fps are used widely in video making. For DJI Phantom 4, it can recode videos in 1080p at 120fps. But for YouTube, Instagram and Vimeo, the maximum frame rate is 60fps. So you have to set it lower.
Bitrate refers to the amount of data used to encode a single second of a video. It affects file size and image quality. The rule of thumb is that the higher the bitrate, the better quality the video at the cost of a larger file size. It determines how fast of an internet connection you need to view it, and how much it costs to deliver it if you are uploading it online. Overall, you need to balance video quality and size by changing bitrate accordingly.
Final Words:
Hope you can make amazing videos after walking through these export suggestions. If you have other codec problems, like can’t import DJI videos to Adobe Premiere, go to VideoProc to transcode videos. All format and codec issues can be solved by this versatile video editor.