pixels and terrible banding in dark areas - youtube compression

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Level 1

5 points

pixels and terrible banding in dark areas - youtube compression

Hi,

I know that the topic has been discused plenty of times, but I wanted to have a confirmation from you that what I do is the maximum I can get from youtube.

In the link below you can see a few shots from our music video - it looks great on vimeo, but when uploaded on youtube, you can see some huge pixels, banding and generally bad quality in areas with low light. I tried a number of compression methods and tried to crush blacks a little bit, but the effect is still pretty bad in the shots with little light. My current settings are (using compressor): h.264, auto bitrate and keyframes, frame reordering unchecked, original frame rate and resolution (video shot in 720p). This is what youtube recommends on their website. I'm using noise to cover banding, but youtube doesn't seem to work well with it.

The link below has blacks lowered already, but that doesn't help too much. Any thoughts? Please let me know!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=xCgw_OW2wAI

Compressor

Posted on Apr 3, 2013 1:54 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Apr 3, 2013 2:38 PM in response to nawi102

Take a short, representative section and encode it to Pro Res LT. Upload and see what that looks like. It will be a longer upload but hopefully will be worth the wait.

Russ

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Answer 2

nawi102 Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 3, 2013 4:20 PM in response to Russ H

Same story with Pro Res LT, looks perfect when exported to a file, but youtube just kills the blacks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUHb5qFzeXg

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Answer 3

Russ H

Level 7

22,432 points

Apr 3, 2013 6:36 PM in response to nawi102

Bummer; thought by giving YT's encoder more data, you might get a better result.

Sort of at a loss what next steps might be. Maybe try color boards; they're pretty versatile .

Good luck. Post back with any updates.

Russ

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Answer 4

Apr 3, 2013 10:27 PM in response to nawi102

Please post the URL for the Vimeo video.

I always send ProRes to Youtube... I also add a color profile to the video using the Automator app, HD (rec.709). If the video needs to be a little darker you can use the RGB setting.

Just drop the video into the Get Specified Movies window. You can save this as a workflow so you can use it over and over.

(When saving a video from Motion, Motion does not add a FAST START to the video when saving/exporting. The above Automator workflow will add a 'fast start' to the video.)

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Answer 5

nawi102 Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 6, 2013 5:49 PM in response to David M Brewer

Thanks a lot for the hints, I didn't know that a color profile can be added just like that. Still it seems that my automator is too old, as it has only SD, PAL and HD color profiles available (screenshot). I guess I would have to install the new OS to get the new version, as it doesn't have an update function... Just to see what it does, I've uploaded the pro res version with HD color profile added; same story as previously -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8Pc3wzcVrw

This is the vimeo version --> https://vimeo.com/63016609

You can still see some pixels and banding issues on vimeo especially when you look for it, but I think they're not that distracting and quality is way better that youtube. Another thing is, on vimeo I could only upload video up to 500 MB, while the initial export I used for youtube was above 1.5 GB. Not sure if the better source file would perform much better on vimeo?

I guess the video itself is quite an issue for online compression as the scenes are pretty dark, with blacks "blown out" and white flares that make banding even worse. But without these, that would be a different video, so these things have to stay and it would be good to make it work on youtube 😉.

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Answer 6

darbypsnm

Level 3

730 points

Apr 10, 2013 9:00 AM in response to nawi102

I have had problems in the past with compression(a number of codecs) when the white, blacks and/or reds were not broadcast safe. No matter what I changed the problem (artifacting, etc.) never cleared up.

Once I made them broadcast safe 90-100% of the problems went away even though the final output wasn't for broadcast.

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Answer 7

nawi102 Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 10, 2013 9:10 AM in response to darbypsnm

That's a good tip, thanks for that - I will give it a go soon and will post with results.

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Answer 8

darbypsnm

Level 3

730 points

Apr 10, 2013 9:17 AM in response to nawi102

We have had a lot of success with uploading HD H264 files at 5000Kbps aka 5MB (23.98 or 29.97) to Vimeo & Youtube.

When they are played full screen everything looks good.

I would double check your YT specs here:

http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=58134&rd=1

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Answer 9

nawi102 Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 17, 2013 8:23 AM in response to darbypsnm

I've changed all input&output black to 16 and white to 235. This helped slightly with some black areas, image looks better but there's still way to go before it looks decent in full screen 😉 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CgICT7T9mA

I've been through YT preferred specs a number of times to make sure I've got the right settings, and somehow I'm still getting a message when uploading a clip saying "For better results, adjust your Quicktime settings to prepare videos for internet streaming". It's followed by the link you supplied above. For all my uploads I follow the required guidelines (23.98fps, frame reordering unchecked, auto bitrate and key frames, file format is Quicktime movie [tried MPEG4 with same results], h.264 codec, AAC audio) but somehow I'm still getting the message about adjusting QT settings... Any idea what other settings would casue this message to appear?

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Answer 10

darbypsnm

Level 3

730 points

Apr 17, 2013 8:37 AM in response to nawi102

In the H264 video data rate settings there is a pull-down to optimize for streaming.

I'm pretty certain the default is download and you cannot change this when the data rate is set to automatic.
This can only be changed when you restrict your data rate.

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Answer 11

nawi102 Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 17, 2013 9:20 AM in response to darbypsnm

That's right, in Compressor you can choose either Automatic data range or you can set up kbpsc limit and then choose "Optimise for" DVD/Download/Streaming.

Following YT guideline I usually used the automatic data rate; now I've limited the data rate to 50000 and used "Optimised for Streaming" but yet again YT displayed message about adjusting QT settings during the upload...

Looks like I'm losing the game here 😉!

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Answer 12

darbypsnm

Level 3

730 points

Apr 17, 2013 9:35 AM in response to nawi102

I think if you check the data rate of your automatic file in QT it is most likely under 25,000.
In my opinion 50K is overkill and you will never be able to see the difference between the two files.

I have had some H264 problems in Compressor 4 that do not happen in 3 on another machine.

I would suggest doing a test using the same settings but creating the H264 in QT.

Limiting your data rate to 15K should be more than enough.

There are two places to optimize for streaming in the the QT export settings.
1) When you choose export from QT ensure that prepare for internet streaming is checked and fast start is the option in the pulldown.

2) same place as compressor in the video settings

P.S. what are your sequence settings? Codec?

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Answer 13

nawi102 Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 17, 2013 2:23 PM in response to darbypsnm

Thanks again for the advice. I've used QT pro to export the uncompressed file, used auto bit rate and key frames and checked internet streaming&fast start on the bottom. Pixels're still there, but I think this is the best result so far and YT doesn't shout anymore about QT settings - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK8mHL_1TZQ&feature=youtu.be

Sequence in FCPX is a 720p with 23.98 and codec for any clips in the sequence is "Animation", probably because the whole clip has been exported and then imported again from AE using uncompressed/looseless settings. Original clips imported from camera have "H.264, Linear PCM" as a codec, not sure if that's what you meant.

The data rate for the file exported via QT is 69k, when done via compressor it's 70k (when both are with auto bit rate).

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