DSLR footage - Master export to Pro Res or Pro Res HQ?

Working with DSLR footage, natively in premiere, doing all my color work there as well. I have an adjustment layer with 3-4 effects (various color/beauty filters) over the footage.

I am ready to make my master file, which I will then create an .mp4 from, should I export my master to HQ or regular Pro Res? Is there a noticeable quality difference with DSLR footage?

Also, would it be of higher quality to export an .mp4 directly from the timeline (using all the best settings in media encoder) vs creating it from the master file?

Thanks

Since the original footage is from a DSLR, I would say exporting a master as regular Pro Res will be fine. HQ I think will be overkill.

Your second question I'm not sure about. I've done both where I export a master Pro Res file, then created a .mp4 from it. I've also exported straight from the timeline to create a .mp4. I haven't noticed any difference in quality.

Hope that helps!

Exporting directly to your final delivery eg. Mp4 should result in higher quality output since there isn't any loss when converting to an intermediate format. But prores is designed as a high quality intermediate codec so you're unlikely to spot much of a difference.

I'll go with prores hq (and I usually use that as an intermediate to/from grading), but for your purpose, you're unlikely to spot any difference as the Mp4/h.264 compression you will use is so much lossier.

So usually I'll go with efficiency in process. Eg. If my final master is to export a prores master, I'll export the master and encode h.264 screener from that file. Which is faster than having to render the raw files twice.

Just make sure you're not already rendering to I frame mpeg in the timeline and "using previews" for export!



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Yeah - make sure your preview files are set up to be ProRes if you use the 'use previews' option - I fell for this one too a couple of times.

I also usually export a ProRes copy when I'm at or near the final, purely so there's a best quality backup of the project in case of complete catastrophe. But if you're not using it for backup, then as everyone says, you'll probably not notice any difference.