How to export a video in Premiere Pro

Posted Jun 25th, 2021 by Elisabeth

Once you have your story on the timeline, color corrected and with some music, it’s time to turn it into a movie you can actually upload!

When you open up the export media menu you’re confronted with a lot of options. To find this menu: click on File-Export-Media. There’s no shame is choosing a handy pre-set, for YouTube or Vimeo or other social media or a high quality 4K or 1080p export.

If you want to gain more control over the quality of your export, there are some key settings to know about. To export for delivery, you need to specify a container file format.

In Export settings:

Format: H264
Preset: Choose a preset or make a custom one (you can save this)
Output name: Give your final video a name and store in the right folder.

Make sure export Video and Audio are both ticked in the boxes

In the Video tab (next to Effects tab):

Bitrate Settings: Bitrate is the number of bits per second. It determines the size and quality of video and audio files. The higher the bitrate, the better the quality and the larger the file size.

Bitrate encoding: *VBR, 2-pass
Two-pass encoding is a video encoding strategy used to retain the best quality during conversion. The first pass analyses how much bitrate is needed and the second pass renders the video. VBR means Variable Bitrate which is higher quality and more efficient than Constant Bitrate or CBR, and can deliver content of comparable quality in smaller file sizes.
Target Bitrate: If you are uploading a 4K video, then you should set your bitrate between 35 and 68 Mbps depending on the frame rate of your footage. The higher the frame rate, the higher the target bitrate needs to be. If you are editing HD video, your Target Bitrate video should be set between 8 to 12Mbps for uploading. Higher, if you deliver for productions.

– Maximum Bitrate: Set the maximum bitrate always a bit higher than the target bitrate.

There are a lot more settings to look into, but for now this is enough to export a video. Go ahead now and click EXPORT.

Photo & Video Training FAQs

✚

What is the best format to export video?

The 2 best video formats for exporting are H. 264 and Quicktime MOV.

✚

Which video format is best for social media?

The codec H.264 produces an MP4 file, which delivers the best quality with the smallest size. Because its small size MP4 is great for YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.

✚

Where does Premier Pro export the final file to?

Go to File > Export > Media.
Choose a Format and a Preset.
Next to Output Name click on the name and rename the files.
Choose the location you want to save your file to.

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