How to Export Video from Premiere Pro (Best Rendering Settings)

So, how do you export video from Premiere Pro correctly?

The perfect rendering settings exist, and they depend on your video and its final destination.

Whether it’s a vlog or a demo reel with your projects, Adobe Premiere Pro has already got the settings you need built in.

So let’s take a closer look at how to export video from Premiere Pro and the best rendering settings.

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How to Export Video from Premiere Pro

As a matter of fact, before you get to the rendering part, you should already know how most of your export settings will look.

From recording your footage – to editing – to rendering, your settings should preferably stay the same to avoid quality and data loss, image scaling and retarding fps.

Still, the export settings in Premiere Pro are very easy to set, and once you have done that, you can use the same settings again and again by saving them as a preset.

Let’s go through all the main rendering settings you need to apply in your video.

In and Out Points

The first thing to do before the export is to set your In and Out points.

You can quickly do this by I and O shortcuts: go to the beginning of your planned sequence and press I for In and to the end of your sequence, press O for Out.

Export Settings

Next, you go to File>Export>Media to create the settings of your export.

In the right part of your screen, you can see the preview of what’s included in your future render:

The format of your video should be H.264. This is the most common format for videos, displayed on all platforms, so we advise using it in all your video renders.

Now, you can pick the Preset – Adobe already put all the needed settings matching your video.

You can choose presets based on the platform they’ll be posted on, the resolution and the fps of your video.

File Name – by clicking on this tool, you’ll be able to choose the name, output folder and file format for your video.

Here you can change the default output or final name of your video.

❗️Make sure you’ve selected both Export Video and Export Audio, so none of your data will be lost.

Basic Video Settings

In this menu, you can apply additional changes to your video – change the resolution or fps if needed.

Still, we recommend clicking Match Source, which will sync your render settings with sequence settings.

By doing this, you’ll make sure no quality is lost, and your future video will be displayed correctly.

Aspect Ratio is the next thing you should pay attention to – you got to set the correct width/height balance for your video.

The setting you should be using here is Square Pixels (1:0).

Note that your Source and Output settings should match:

 ❗️Make sure you’ve selected Render at Maximum Depth and Use Maximum Render Quality to get the best rendering quality.

Encoding Settings

Take a quick look at your encoding settings:

Set the Profile to High and Level to 4.2 – these are the most optimal settings for your H.264 video, whether you’re planning to use these settings for a stream, or simply render a video.

Bitrate Settings

One of the most important settings here – the bitrate of your video will determine how detailed the image is. Here you can select among CBR, VBR 1 and VBR 2 settings.

The difference between VBR 1 and VBR 2 is the detailedness of your image – if your video doesn’t contain dynamic transitions and quick frame-to-frame animation, we advise you to pick VBR 1 – the video file won’t be the size of a mountain for nothing, and the quality will be just perfect for interview, podcast or similar type of the video.

(See also: how to add transitions in Premiere Pro).

CBR is rarely used by editors because it analyzes and details all the data from the video, unlike the VBR, which automatically selects the parts where it will be needed. The result is a huge file size you most likely won’t need.

As for the Target Bitrate (Mbps), it also should depend on the type of your video: for the video matching VBR 1 settings, you should set the minimum bitrate 15 Mbps; for the video matching VBR 2, you should use the minimum bitrate 42 Mbps.

Conclusion

So, basically, you can choose among multiple settings, but the most important is to set the correct video format (h.264), match your source and output settings, and make sure you select 1.0 aspect ratio and VBR 1/VBR 2 bitrate, depending on your video.

You can also save your own presets from the settings you’ve created – click on Save as a Preset icon:

Hope this guide was useful! Exporting a video from Premiere Pro is very easy and customizable; whatever you make, you can always select the suitable setting and get the best result out of the options suggested by Adobe in Premiere Pro.

Good luck with your renders!

Extension for Premiere Pro

For the quickest editing, you can use the tool which helps you to find, preview & import media from all over the internet into one place – EasyEdit Viewer+Assets.

This free extension allows you to search for a video, image or GIF by the keyword – simply type it, and you’ll get the result you need, collected from stock platforms all over the globe.

You might also enjoy our guide to adding text to Premiere Pro.

Don’t Have Premiere Pro?

Download Premiere Pro

Download the latest version of Adobe Premiere to follow along with this simple tutorial.

Start a free 7-day trial today

LEARN MORE