A

Anonymous

Question

0-255 16-235

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
May 20, 2019
6 replies
8062 views

Hi,

I am shooting Gh5 video at 0-255. I am exporting edits using Adobe Media Encoder in h.264.

All my exports are for some reason getting converted to 16-235.

Is it a problem that my footage is going from 0-255 to 16-235? Will I lose data?

If so is there any AME option to export h.264 full colour range?

Thanks.

This topic has been closed for replies.

R

rodneyb56060189

Legend

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Premiere is regularly used to cut major features, in the US and elsewhere. With some of those productions using a slightly different 'version' of Premiere, as they need a ton more metadata capabilities. The basic tools are the same in both versions, it's mainly the metadata stuff in the "Hollywood" version that has been juiced up. And over time, those extra meta capabilities are coming into the "public" Premiere.

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you mean there's a secret super duper adobe NLE that the Hollywood giants use but we don't know about it yet in the normal 'consumer subscription" world ??

R Neil Haugen

Legend

Huh? They talk about it in presentations at NAB, Adobe MAX, and IBC every year. Which are all available online, of course. Search for say Karl Soule or David Helmly on YouTube, for example. You see most of the names of that group listed if you watch the Help/About screen long enough that it scrolls to the "Worldwide Pro Video Team" section.

Say, the linked YouTube vid here, from NAB 2018. He explains the "Hollywood" section within the first 3:30 of his presentation.

Hollywood Workflows: Best Practices in Premiere Pro (NAB Show 2018) | Adobe Creative Cloud - YouTube

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

R

rodneyb56060189

Legend

And when you say, all the pro cameras ( alexa, red, Panavision, etc. ) can be imported properly to PPro with attention to the in camera settings .. do you mean a look applied to an SDI output file or are you talking about the log files etc. ???

After all, some of those cameras shoot for movie screens... and you're saying PPro allows you to adjust it's color space to allow for that representation ???

R Neil Haugen

Legend

The tutorials at mixinglight.com I reference will be outside the paywall for all to view freely. "Adobe" will even link to them as soon as they're up. They've given amazing tech support for this effort, all of it intentionally to get the information out. And much of what I cover in the two parts I'm recording is not actually covered together, let alone at all for some of it, in any Adobe documentation.

For most serious users pro or amateur, it would be useful to watch them. Both presentations I gave at NAB had colorists scribbling data furiously.

For anyone who knows much of my postings here and elsewhere, one thing I am very consistent on: Adobe's product manuals and documentation suck big time. Meaning so much of what people "know" ... even experienced pros ... about how Premiere works for this instance is pure speculation, and often way off from what actually happens within the app.

Premiere is regularly used to cut major features, in the US and elsewhere. With some of those productions using a slightly different 'version' of Premiere, as they need a ton more metadata capabilities. The basic tools are the same in both versions, it's mainly the metadata stuff in the "Hollywood" version that has been juiced up. And over time, those extra meta capabilities are coming into the "public" Premiere.

If you can work in Pr up to the max of 10,000 nits with the right gear ... yea, you can cut anything in it. You need to know how to "normalize" the file for Pr, just like you would need to know how to work with any particular media in Avid or Resolve or whatever. And how to set up your system.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

R

rodneyb56060189

Legend

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I gave a presentation on this in the Flanders/MixingLight booth at NAB, and I have a tutorial coming out in the next few days over at mixinglight.com on this, all the details of color management/handling from SDR/Rec.709 through HDR.

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do you stand to gain money wise by promoting your tutorial(s) and the promotion of Adobe editing in general ?

In other words, are you selling the product and your own involvement in order to make money ?

R

rodneyb56060189

Legend

There seems to be a lot of room for discussion about this stuff, and Neil is correct in my opinion, re: broadcast standards. He is also a very accomplished Still photographer who has more than 40 years experience shooting very high quality photographs with cameras that are high end ( 35mm, 6x7, 4x5, 8x10, etc.) Both black and white and color ! He is very very into color and learning everything about film in general.

Thank you Neil !

With regard to what clipping occurs when shooting with a professional digital film camera ( which most of us cannot afford with a full assortment of prime cine lenses, which means most people ( including the producers of AVENGERS THE LAST STAND ) have to rent them for the photography portion of the production . Otherwise you would have to be a moron to buy all that stuff for one movie production.

Now, the question is, are we dealing with projection ( digital film ) or broadcast standard ( based on old CRT TV standards ).

That's an interesting question when dealing with new technology of VIEWING via HD, UHD, XUHD, WCG, 4K, 8K and 8 bit 10 bit, and all the rest of the stuff going on. As described re: "the wild west ".

It's not REALLY the wild west, and beyond making something linear vs. log for the purpose of editing, the spaces involved are quite adjustable BEYOND broadcast ( dinosaur ) standards.

Adobe has NO clue what that is and will probably never be able to re-write ( from the bottom up ) the whole structure of dealing with color.

Although I admire the desire to sell adobe despite the stupid rec 709 clipping that is inherent in that program, I would love to sit down and actually SHOOT something with a modern professional DIGITAL FILM CAMERA and compare notes about the accuracy and handling of that material … even though the camera may be 'screwy'.

hehe... What was it Jim said the other day ?? He likes to work with ACES in resolve as a rule ? Even though his exports are rec709 mostly ??

R

rodneyb56060189

Legend

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If you're having an issue with tonal variations inside of Pr compared to outside Pr on your computer, you've got a rig NOT set up for working with Pr and pro-broadcast media. Premiere is built for pro broadcast standards ... color space of video sRGB, Rec.709 profile including a gamma of 2.4 and brightness of 100 nits. If your OS and monitors are carefully set up for that, all is fine.

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bottom line... adobe can help you if you are shooting for old TV standard rec 709 for broadcast. If you are shooting for web streaming or projection or anything else, you are out of luck.

It ONLY gives you 16-236 based on old 8 bit conversion of IRE from old CRT TV's. It imports stuff that way and it exports stuff that way, no matter what.

Even if you try to export something with a wider gamut and so on... it will clip it and deny you the product.

R

rodneyb56060189

Legend

It ONLY gives you 16-235

R Neil Haugen

Legend

The standard for all but a few image-sequence or 4/4/4/4 format/codec options is written as 16-235, which is the general standard for Rec.709 material. So Pr, which is tightly wired into "broadcast standards" exports most Rec.709 format/codec options in the "appropriate" 16-235 range.

No, you're not losing data. It's a "mapping" thing, not actually changing data.

The weird thing of all this is the way they chose to show the monitor scaling for the Lumetri scopes, along the right side. You have three options ... 8 bit, Float, and HDR. Set the 8 bit option, the right-side scale for most things shows 0-255 ... which isn't showing the signal level, but think of it as a monitor mapping level.

Change your scope to the Waveform in either YC variant, all of a sudden that right-side scale for most Rec.709 media is showing 16-235. Which is for that media the correct signal level of the file.

Neil

Everyone's mileage always varies ...

A

Anonymous

Hi Neil thank you for your reply genuinely, it's incredibly detailed so forgive me from not being able to take it all in but you did say there was no data loss which is good, however since AME defaults to exporting 16-235 should I just shoot my videos in 16-235?

I can't find any AME option to export h.264 at 0-255 which is annoying because the conversion washes out my videos reducing contrast and saturation.

I intend to upload to YouTube/Vimeo.

R

rodneyb56060189

Legend

Is hard to find the info you want on the internet. Most articles about Ultra HD, Wide Color Gamut, Rec 709 vs. Rec 2020, etc., give some information about specific things, but then you usually have to keep digging for the specific info you want.

Your 16-235 is based on 8 bit 'broadcast' standard ( 709) WHEN TV was a cathode ray tube. Before flat screens and before changes to color spaces ( now you can see more colors on modern flat screens via different methods … some via LED types of illumination, some are now 10 bit, etc. etc. ). It gets complicated. I don't get it either cause things are changing so fast.

In general, to shoot stills with your camera you would use the FULL setting ( 0-255 ). And shooting video you would use LIMITED.

The thing is... print ( photo printing ) has more color shades or 'transitions' than a TV, hence you have FULL (probably using Adobe RGB).

The 0-255 ( with safety marks of 16-235 ) is an old IRE scale. It really doesn't apply in reality anymore except it's the lowest common denominator for being able to deliver stuff to the majority of consumers with extremely different types of TV sets.

So to be safe you should just shoot limited ( 16-235 ).

However, the tricky part for you is now enhanced by the fact you are uploading to you tube and vimeo, which are displayed via internet on users computer screens... which are 0-255 ( they are not TV's ). That means you can in fact shoot FULL and people will be able to see it OK. The reason 16-235 was used is because the old CRT TV's HATED bright white and closed blacks. 0 = closed black, 255 = very white.

Computer monitors don't mind those extremes of black and white.

If you REALLY want to see what's going on (cause you are editing on a computer screen) is to

a) use a color calibrated monitor and set it to what you want ( probably rec 709 gamma 2.4 for most stuff -- film projection is different).

b) hook up a good video monitor via SDI card like BM 4k extreme or whatever it's called ) which goes into a PCI-E x8 slot.

Now use the video as your reference monitor along with your calibrated primary monitor...and you'll see pretty much the same thing that you upload ( if you cross your fingers ).

A

Anonymous

Edit: h.264

Peru Bob

Community Expert

wrote
Edit: h.264

I fixed it in your original post.

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