# Reaper: Rendering to video



## Daniel Petras (Feb 17, 2018)

Do you normally render your final video format out of your DAW? I know specifically in Reaper that the quality is not as good as the original when it comes out and I'm looking for an alternative so the video quality is not degraded.


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## Mundano (Feb 17, 2018)

video rendering in Reaper for me is only to confirm that the music is synced correctly, nothing more. Then you have to do it external, i mean the audio-track + video in final cut, or adobe premiere... reaper video quality render is not good for the final product.


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## d.healey (Feb 17, 2018)

Daniel Petras said:


> I know specifically in Reaper that the quality is not as good as the original when it comes out.


Sure it is, select a lossless codec


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## EvilDragon (Feb 17, 2018)

Mundano said:


> reaper video quality render is not good for the final product.



Wrong.


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## Daniel Petras (Feb 17, 2018)

I've done Reaper rendered out Huffyuv and then converted it in Handbrake to Mp4 and the quality is good. If you render out 30fps in Reaper can you convert back to 60fps?


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## Mundano (Feb 17, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> Wrong.


 i render all the time to Mp4 but not for final product, but to assure sync is good. The video Editor takes from me only the audio track and works in his/her software further. I wouldn't render Video for final Product, TV, Movie in Reaper


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## d.healey (Feb 17, 2018)

Daniel Petras said:


> I've done Reaper rendered out Huffyuv and then converted it in Handbrake to Mp4 and the quality is good.


Handbrake is not lossless (usually) so you will lose quality there


> If you render out 30fps in Reaper can you convert back to 60fps?


Yes but you won't have the frames you had in the original since you lost them when rendering to 30fps.



Mundano said:


> i render all the time to Mp4 but not for final product


MP4 is just a container, the quality will be affected by the codec and settings you use but there is no reason that the quality of the video you get out of Reaper can't be the same as from ANY other software that renders video using the equivalent codec and settings.


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## Mundano (Feb 17, 2018)

d.healey said:


> Handbrake is not lossless (usually) so you will lose quality there
> 
> Yes but you won't have the frames you had in the original since you lost them when rendering to 30fps.
> 
> ...


yep, you are right, i didn't mean to export in Mp4 for final product..


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## Daniel Petras (Feb 17, 2018)

d.healey said:


> Handbrake is not lossless (usually) so you will lose quality there



There's an option for lossless quality in Handbrake. It seemed that the picture didn't lose any quality until the YouTube encoding made it darker.


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## d.healey (Feb 17, 2018)

Daniel Petras said:


> There's an option for lossless quality in Handbrake. It seemed that the picture didn't lose any quality until the YouTube encoding made it darker.


That's why I said usually  why use handbrake at all if you want lossless...


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## Daniel Petras (Feb 17, 2018)

d.healey said:


> why use handbrake at all if you want lossless...



I can't render out MP4 in Reaper. It comes out as MOV and looks terrible.


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## d.healey (Feb 17, 2018)

Daniel Petras said:


> I can't render out MP4 in Reaper. It comes out as MOV and looks terrible.


Well if it's for uploading to YouTube you can use AVI too, YouTube will convert it. But I wonder why you can't render MP4 directly out of Reaper. Mov should be fine, it's just another container, what Codec are you using?


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## Daniel Petras (Feb 17, 2018)

d.healey said:


> Well if it's for uploading to YouTube you can use AVI too, YouTube will convert it. But I wonder why you can't render MP4 directly out of Reaper. Mov should be fine, it's just another container, what Codec are you using?


I only have one option which is MJPEG.


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## chrisr (Feb 17, 2018)

Reaper will let you add a bunch of codecs and chose which you want to prioritise in use. To work with movs you'll need the quicktime codec. Also download ffmpeg and read about that. (I appreciate that's quite a lot to read/learn)...

So ... more impotantly, anyone on here who is delivering video to clients, read about and understand the difference between multiplexing (muxing) and rendering. Get off VIC and go and google it now!


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## bupper (Feb 18, 2018)

All you have to do is rename the extension .mov to .mp4 nothing more, works perfectly. Its all h264 codec anyway


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## Divico (Nov 29, 2018)

Exported a project today. Couldnt get Reaper to make me a mp4 instead of a 2gig mov. Maybe someone knows how this option works.
I had some syncinc problems in the past where Reaper rendered me something out of sync for whatever reason oO.
Doing all the audio in Reaper and a final render in Hitfilm is my workflow.


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## Daniel Petras (Nov 29, 2018)

I've been using Handbrake to convert to mp4. If you use HB, make sure to set the bit depth in the audio tab to the highest setting, otherwise there might be artifacts.


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