How to edit H.265/HEVC files in Adobe Premiere Pro?


If you are shooting with a Samsung NX1 or NX500 4K camera, you may have issues editing its H.265/HEVC 4K video in Adobe Premiere Pro. That’s because currently Adobe hasn’t added full support for this new compression standard. To be able to use H.265/HEVC 4K footage in Adobe Premiere Pro smoothly, you will need third party converters to process “transcoded editing”. There’s a guide presenting how to convert H.265/HEVC files to DNxHD/ProRes .mov for use in Premiere with optimum performance.
HEVC H.265
Is it possible to edit H.265/HEVC files in Premiere Pro CC?
“Hi, there, does anyone know if Adobe has a plan to implement H.265 decoding in Premiere CC? I shot with a Samsung NX1 4K camera, which employs H.265/HEVC compression method. Unfortunately, the NX 1 H.265 MP4 files are uneditable in Premiere CC. I must finish my project this weekend. What should I do to go about this? Any clues? I would really appreciate any help. Thanks in advance.”

HEVC (High Efficiency Video Encoding), also known as H.265, is a pretty new codec that has not been supported by mainstream NLEs, such as Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, FCP X, iMovie, Edius, and DaVinci Resolve. To be able to edit H.265/HEVC files in Adobe Premiere smoothly, currently you will need to convert H.265/HEVC files to an intermediate format  that is best suited for use in Adobe Premiere, such as DNxHD or ProRes encoded MOV format. To process format conversion, third party software is required. Considering the ease of use and well support for H.265/HEVC UHD 4K footage, we would recommend H.265/HEVC Converter app, which recognizes and handles H.265 media well.
editing H.265/HEVC 4K video in Adobe Premiere Prouse H.265/HEVC 4K footage in Adobe Premiere Pro

[Guide] How to convert H.265/HEVC video files for editing in Premiere?

Follow these steps:
Step 1: Start up this H.265/HEVC Converter for Premiere. When its main interface pops up, click ‘Import’ to input your source media.
convert H.265/HEVC files to DNxHD/ProRes .mov for use in Premiere

Step 2: Select output format for Premiere
* If you are on a Windows PC, from the “Profile” bar, choose ‘Avid DNxHD 1080p (*.mov)’ as output under ‘Avid Media Composer’ column. (See the screenshot above)

** If you are on a Mac computer, choose ‘Apple ProRes 422 (*.mov)’ as target under ‘Final Cut Pro’ catalogue.
H.265/HEVC files in Adobe Premiere Pro

*** Note that this converter program can only output Apple ProRes and DNxHD video up to 1080p, if your HEVC video is 4K and you want to preserve 4K quality of your source files, you need to select “4K Video” > “4K H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Video (*.mp4)” as target format. To export 4K files, please make sure your computer has enough power to process 4K. If not, simply select Apple ProRes or DNxHD as output format depending on your OS.
HEVC support in Premiere Pro CC

Step 3: Custom video and audio settings
If necessary, you can click ‘Settings’ button and go to ‘Profiles Settings’ panel to modify video and audio settings like video encoder, resolution, video bit rate, frame rate, aspect ratio, audio encoder, sample rate, audio bit rate, and audio channels.

Step 4: Start H.265/HEVC files to DNxHD/ProRes MOV Conversion
When ready, click ‘Start’ to begin format conversion. As soon as the conversion is complete, you can click ‘Open Folder’ button to get the exported DNxHD/ProRes MOV files for use in Adobe Premiere with optimum performance.

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