Uncompressed 8/10 bit export with quality loss.

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Level 1

5 points

Uncompressed 8/10 bit export with quality loss.

I've made a simple test with black background and a single white flare. Have a look at the results:

This is a screen from FCPX (10.0.8) - I just used the full screen button and took a screenshot:

Below you can see the 8-bit uncompressed export. I've opened the file in Quicktime and took a screenshot (ctrl+shift+3):

And 10-bit uncompressed:

On both of the exports you can see some terrible banding. I know that this can be masked with noise etc. but shouldn't uncompressed export give us exactly what we see in the project window? Now I'm a bit puzzled, as I alwyas export uncompressed footage of a clip to do color grading in AE but it looks like I might be losing quality in the process. I've noticed also that when using Neat Video in FCPX, the uncompressed footage can have some banding in "difficult" dark areas while everything looks good in FC project.

Could it be that the 3rd party plugins somehow affect export (I used mFlare to do the white flare)? Any ideas?

Compressor

Posted on Apr 17, 2013 6:19 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 30, 2018 1:09 AM in response to BenB

I don't know how FinalCut works, but I'm having the same issues with Premiere (which works in 32 bit float) and using ProRes 4444 footage (from Resolve). Premiere shows no banding, but all exports do. The only one I've found to work is a YUV Uncompressed 10-bit. Interestingly, Quicktime still shows banding on that video (when imported to Premiere there isn't banding). Can quicktime not display 10-bit video? (I'm working on a 10-bit display)

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Answer 2

Jul 30, 2018 1:09 AM in response to BenB

I don't know how FinalCut works, but I'm having the same issues with Premiere (which works in 32 bit float) and using ProRes 4444 footage (from Resolve). Premiere shows no banding, but all exports do. The only one I've found to work is a YUV Uncompressed 10-bit. Interestingly, Quicktime still shows banding on that video (when imported to Premiere there isn't banding). Can quicktime not display 10-bit video? (I'm working on a 10-bit display)

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Answer 3

Tony Gay

Level 4

1,638 points

Apr 17, 2013 9:58 PM in response to nawi102

What file type are you exporting to?

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Answer 4

BenB

Level 6

13,222 points

Apr 18, 2013 2:00 AM in response to Tony Gay

10-bit video, even uncompressed isn't great at handling subtle gradients like this. If ProRes doesn't handle it well, not much you can do.

But the big question is as previsouly posted, what codec/settings are your Timeline in FCP X that you are creating this in?

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Answer 5

nawi102 Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 18, 2013 4:39 AM in response to BenB

I'm exporting that into Quick Time movie file. Not sure about codec/timeline settings - it's 720p, but is there a specific codec used for the whole project/where can I check it?

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Answer 6

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,809 points

Apr 18, 2013 5:10 AM in response to nawi102

What's the original media? Uncompressed? ProRes? Open the file in the QT player and look in the movie inspector.

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Answer 7

nawi102 Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 18, 2013 6:15 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

The original media (the black background) is h.264 as this is footage from Mark III. Now I've replaced this footage with black solid (png) exportet from Photoshop and 10 bit render looks same as in the examples above.

Just found the option where the render format for the project can be chosen - it's ProRes422 by default and this is what I've had selected. So my source file was only h.264, but the projet was being rendered in ProRes422 - so I guess I should see the same quality when exporting the project using ProRes422, but it's not the case somehow.

I've exported this again having PNG solid as a background to ProRes 4444 and it looks like this one gives the best result, although banding is still visible there.

I did the same test with black solid exported from AE in loseless settings (Animation). I've changed project render format to 10-bit and exported project to 10-bit again, but the banding is the same as it was with the 1st attempt.

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Answer 8

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,809 points

Apr 18, 2013 6:24 AM in response to nawi102

You need to add noise to the image to break up the banding.

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Answer 9

nawi102 Author

Level 1

5 points

Apr 18, 2013 6:43 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

Hi Tom,

I know that, but I'm just surprised that uncompresed footage has isues like that. What pushed me to do this test was exporting straigh-from-camera footage with only noise reduction applied using uncompressed settings, in order to color correct in AE. What surprised me was that this footage had some signs of quality loss already, what means that I always degrade quality at least twice before having final export (FCP to uncompressed/pro res 4444 with quality loss --> AE to Animation hopefully loseless --> and final export from FCP to h.264 with quality loss).

I guess I will just apply noise reduction by the end of a project rather than at the beginning, but it's a bit uncomfortable to know that you can't really export 100% quality of your project.

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Answer 10

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,809 points

Apr 18, 2013 7:02 AM in response to nawi102

The banding is not because of the codec but because of the bit depth. 8-bit is the minimum. 10-bit is not a whole lot better.

How is your audience going to see this? 100% quality is probably never going to happen. I always thought it was ridiculous that clients would ooh and aah over the wonderfully rich, deep purples and browns in an image when I knew perfectly well that the viewer was going to see black.

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Answer 11

BenB

Level 6

13,222 points

Apr 18, 2013 7:29 AM in response to Tom Wolsky

You state the original is H.264, then the timeline is based on the severe limitations of H.264. The ProRes renders are configured to the H.264 parameters (bit depth, data rates, etc).

Tom is right on target.

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Answer 12

Jul 30, 2018 1:09 AM in response to nawi102

I ended up adding 1% noise in Premiere to fix my banding issue. Thanks Tom!

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Answer 13

Tom Wolsky

Level 10

152,809 points

Jun 20, 2017 9:57 AM in response to Community User

You can also add Blue Noise in FCP, which is designed to reduce banding.

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