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Railway FX
Railway FX
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June 2, 2020
Question

Problem with bit depth when importing Prores 4444 and HEVC 10bit files

  • June 2, 2020
  • 5 replies
  • 5113 views

Hello!

 

I noticed, that when i'm importing these types of files

mov ProRes 4444 10bit

mov ProRes 4444 XQ 10bit

mp4 HEVC 444 10bit/16bit

Adobe After Effects interprets them as 8bit and shows Millions of colors instead of Trillions and unwanted banding appears.

 

 

There is no way to change import settings, but i'm definitely sure, that these files have more bit depth (checked using Nuke, ffprobe, PotPlayer).

 

 

When i'm trying to use ProRes/HEVC with 422/420 chroma subsampling - AE imports them correctly.

I've attached project files and sample videos.

 

ProRes files rendered inside After Effects (Beta) 17.1.2

 

 

10/16bit mp4 h265 with 444 chroma transcoded using ffmpeg.

 

mp4 HEVC 422 10bit 

 

"ffmpeg.exe" -n -i "D:\Prores\Gradient_ProRes4444.mov" -c:v libx265 -preset slow -pix_fmt yuv422p10le -q 0.18 "D:\Prores\Gradient_h265_10bit_422.mp4"

 

mp4 HEVC 444 16bit

 

"ffmpeg.exe" -i "D:\Prores\Gradient_ProRes4444.mov" -c:v hevc_nvenc -preset slow -pix_fmt yuv444p16 -q 0.18 "D:\Prores\Gradient_h265_10bit_444.mp4"

 

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    5 replies

    Felix Dames
    Felix Dames
    Inspiring
    March 18, 2021

    As it looks for today, it's finally fixed in AE Beta 18.1.0 (Build 30) although there is no word about it in the bug fixes release notes section!?!

     

    - Footage Interpretation bug of ProRes444 as only 8bpc including incorrectly marked as "Millions of Colors" - FIXED!

     

    - Footage Interpretation bug of ProRes4444 with Alpha Channel Premultiplied resulting in wrong unpremultiplied RGB values - FIXED!

     

    Thank you Adobe 😉


    Is this already fixed and rolled out in AE 18.0.1 official release canditade?

     

    Felix

      R Neil Haugen
      R Neil Haugen
      Brainiac
      February 26, 2021

      Felix,

       

      I understand your feelings of course. There's several major issues for a couple of my workflows also. And have been so for in one case about three years.

       

      However, the total number of people with a similar problem from these is relatively a small segment of the total user base. And many things I find not particularly useful have been advanced.

       

      But there are a ton of other users who are thrilled that those things have been advanced. A lot. No matter what I think about those issues.

       

      I've had engineers at NAB point out some of the things that were way high on the list because of the total number of requests. Which had my jaw hanging. Yea, many of the things that are very highly requested seem to me and many of the engineers to be rather frivolous, absurd, or plain dumb.

       

      But it's not the fault of the engineers that so many users want those things. Particularly as the engineers don't have that much of a say in the overall direction and development of the app. That's above even the program heads, and rests with the marketing & experience people ... M&E. The people that do everything by metrics.

       

      The UserVoice is one of their main metric sources, and especially the one we users can have influence over. And given how many of the users ask for things you and I would find questionable, we do need to file posts over there for the truly more important things.

       

      Neil

      Everyone's mileage always varies ...
      Felix Dames
      Felix Dames
      Inspiring
      March 12, 2021

      Neil,

      I appreciate your comment and I'm aware of these marketing practices or priorities in development...

      But this is a bug report thread so please let's not turn it into a discussion about other things.

      Thanks 😉

       

      @JohnColombo17100380 

      Have you and or the developers watched the video showcasing the bug?

      AE_Footage_Interpretation_Bug.mp4

      Any answer or reaction would be very welcome.

       

      Felix

      R Neil Haugen
      R Neil Haugen
      Brainiac
      March 12, 2021

      They are doing more engineer oversight here than on the normal user forums, but I think we users all wish it was more. Especially that they were able to get after things reported much faster.

       

      Watched your video, and it's well done. The bigger surprise for me was the DNxHD/R was not "that" bad, as I know others that have shown the bit-depth of 444 DNx can be incorrect. I actually expected that to have a greater variance than your test showed.

       

      Yes, it necessary to get this fixed as it's a bit of a mess as you're showing there.

       

      Neil

      Everyone's mileage always varies ...
      Felix Dames
      Felix Dames
      Inspiring
      February 26, 2021

      WOW it's absurd Adobe knows about this nasty and confirmed bug since June 2020 and is tracking it internally as DVAAE-4215476, there is a uservoice thread about it I already posted, this bug exists in all AE versions including all beta versions since AE 2019 v.16.1.3 and Adobe doesn't care!!! ProRes4444 is still broken although it's the most used codec in post production and this bug prevents entire post production facilities from upgrading to AE 2020. This again proofs that AE Uservoice is useless for bug reporting as well as this forum as it seems. Sorry to come along rude but if I see that Adobe is using it's development resources to update a homescreen nobody asked for, redesigning the UI Composition Panal nobody asked for, putting lipstic on a pick with an ugly 3D Gizmo instead of rebuilding 3D from scratch with real meshes and proper viewports (that's what the community asked for)... instead of fixing such a fundamental ProRes4444 bug then I need to ask myself how long I'm willing to rent broken software! [RANT OFF] Sorry but sometimes things have to be said LOUD: FIX IT ASAP!

       

      And still I recorded a video for Adobe showcasing the bug:

      AE_Footage_Interpretation_Bug.mp4

       

      Cheers Felix

       

       

      JohnColombo17100380
      Community Manager
      JohnColombo17100380Community Manager
      Community Manager
      June 16, 2020

      Hi Railway_FX,

      Thanks very much for reporting this issue. The team is now tracking this issue internally as DVAAE-4215476. If there are any updates to this bug, this thread will be updated.

       

      Thanks again for reporting this issue and thank you for trying out After Effects (Beta).

      - John, After Effects Engineering

        Felix Dames
        Felix Dames
        Inspiring
        November 14, 2020

        Hey John,

        are there any news for this ProRes bug?

        It's still in AE versions from 17.1.4 up to current Beta version 17.6.0.

        This is a major issue for professional work and should be number one on your priority list.

        Here is an AE User Voice link if you haven't noticed it yet:

        https://adobe-video.uservoice.com/forums/911311-after-effects/suggestions/41633581-after-effects-17-1-4-interpreting-prores444-as-mi

         

        Another ProRes bug exists when rendering ProRes with RGB+Alpha Premultiplied. With alpha channel premultiplied alpha channel is wrong compared to a correct rendering when Alpha Straight is selected. The Alpha premultiplied bug is best to see with a transparent gradient.

         

        Would be great if we could get a fix soon, because lot's of our clients deliver files as ProRes 444 12bit. We need to work on these and loosing color bit depth is not acceptable...

         

        Thanks and all the best,

        Felix

         

          JohnColombo17100380
          Community Manager
          JohnColombo17100380Community Manager
          Community Manager
          November 16, 2020

          Hi Felix,

           

          Thank you so much for reporting these issues. The first issue ( where ProRes4444 is misinterpreted as 8bit ) is currently being investigated but there are unfortunately no updates at this time.

           

          The second issue you've raised is one I don't think we have had reported before. Would you be able to describe in greater detail what is going on when rendering ProRes with RGB+Alpha Premultiplied? With screenshots if possible.

           

          Thanks again for reporting and for using the Beta. And thanks for any additional information you can provide,

          - John, After Effects Engineering Team

          R Neil Haugen
          R Neil Haugen
          Brainiac
          June 3, 2020

          I think I've heard in other places some questions about both Premiere and Ae with 4444 10-bit plus files.

           

          Neil

          Everyone's mileage always varies ...
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